


A Winchester Always

by greerwatson



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Futurefic, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Pining, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 04:31:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20325145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greerwatson/pseuds/greerwatson
Summary: In 1968, when he's expecting a visit from Hawkeye, Charles learns that Margaret has cancer.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fawatson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fawatson/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Secrets and Lies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19059280) by [fawatson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fawatson/pseuds/fawatson). 

**1968**

Who might be so uncivilized as to call at such an hour?

Everyone else had already gone to bed. Nose well in the air, he picked up the receiver and announced, “Winchester residence.”

“Charles! Answering your own phone?”

The voice was wonderfully familiar. Charles smiled with true joy, and promptly modulated his voice. “At this time of night, yes,” he said, pulling out the stool from under the telephone table. “Mrs. Armstrong has long since retired to her own apartment. Which is at the top of the house, as you know: even if she scurried her fastest, you’d have hung up long before she got to the front hall.” He laughed and sat down. “I _can_ be reasonable, you know, Pierce. Now and then. The woman can’t be expected to work twenty-five hours a day. Though she should, of course!” There was a snort at the other end of the line. “And to what do I owe the pleasure?” Charles continued. “It’s been a while since you last called.”

“That conference. The one at Harvard two weeks from now. I assume you’re going? I’ve been asked to sit on a panel about emergency medicine.”

“And you want to beg a bed for the night.”

“A couple of nights, actually.”

“You’re always welcome,” said Charles, with an almost audible smile. “We see too little of you, Pierce. It’ll be good to catch up.”

Yes, he thought, as he went back into his study to turn off the radio. It will be good. He valued—perhaps too much—the chance to see Pierce, to have him come to stay, even if only for a day or two, even if only now and then. As he picked up his empty glass to take to the kitchen, his eye was caught by a case on the wall. “You know one of the things I like about visiting you?” Pierce had said once. “That damn-crazy horn.”

Charles’s lips twitched. Within an hour of his arrival at the 4077th, he had had Pierce pegged as a jokester; it had not taken that much longer before he realized his other tentmate, Hunnicutt, was even more the comedian, just a little more subtle about it. Prank followed prank, more or less throughout his time in Korea. But no Winchester was ever a pushover; and he had not been a member of the Fly Club for nothing. He’d had his fun with his French horn before its demise (and, so to speak, its rebirth).

He had opened the case and taken the thing out. He had even, contrary to Donna’s strictures, given a toot or three, to Pierce’s astonishment. “It can be played?” he’d asked incredulously.

“At the very end, I had to wait in Seoul for a week with not much to do before transport was organized; so I found a little man who was able to give it a mouthpiece.”

“You were stuck too?” Pierce had replied. “I spent three days hanging around in Tokyo.”

Later in bed, Charles lay awake for almost an hour thinking of Korea. Of the 4077th: the hours of surgery, when even the slop of the Mess tent and the squalor of the Swamp seemed unattainable luxuries. Of the people, with whom he shared so little—and so much!—who, whether he liked them or not, had become comrades he would never forget. At the time, it had been unimaginable to Charles Emerson Winchester III that a man such as Capt. Benjamin Franklin Pierce would become a life-long friend. Maine and Massachusetts might not be that far apart, geographically speaking; but he and Pierce had very different childhoods: one a Boston Brahmin from Beacon Hill; the other a country doctor’s boy from Crabapple Cove. And “Hawkeye” Pierce had a charisma that Charles had instantly mistrusted. Still, though it drew all to him, it had proved no hollow charm. The man could be outrageous one minute, dead serious the next. He drank rotgut gin from an illicit still, but bent to sniff the wildflowers blooming by the roadside. He amused the camp with pranks and horseplay, but was enraged by injustice, railing against the stupidities of the army. He was the drunk and hilarious life of the party: he was a dedicated surgeon, who daily strove to mitigate the suffering of war.

Yes, thought Charles, that was the one thing they shared completely: their mutual love of medicine.

“Pierce called last night,” Charles said to Donna over breakfast the next morning; and she was glad for him. On the whole, he allowed, _he_ was rather glad for himself as well.

The children were ecstatic. They adored their Uncle Hawkeye. After they had eaten their cornflakes (with the special treat of sliced bananas on top), put on coats and boots, found Charlotte’s mittens, and loaded Pauline’s “project” onto the front seat of the car, Charles drove them to school. All the way, he listened to their excited chatter. Only after he had dropped them off at the gate did he, in brief solitude, let himself feel again the thrill of Pierce’s upcoming visit.

Then, ruthlessly, he stifled his joy. It was a pointless distraction. The conference was not for a fortnight; he would see Pierce then. As Chief of Surgical Oncology, he must instead turn his mind to the weekly staff meeting.

An hour later, and he sat with the list of next week’s patients in front of him, day by day, each with an assigned time and operating theatre. The patients had names, of course; but he thought of them by the organs that had been invaded. Liver, lungs, and lights, so to speak. He found it hard enough to remember the names of his own patients, let alone those of his colleagues; indeed, he had to check their records each time he spoke to them. Yet, it was his belief that, although impersonal excision removed the cancer, nevertheless personal contact, however brief, did much for patient morale. And that, in turn, improved recovery rates. (Even the blight of Korea, he thought, had been educational in its own appalling fashion.)

Korea.

He scanned back up the list for the name that had caught his eye.

She was one of Roberts’ patients: a suspected intraductal carcinoma. A biopsy would, of course, be performed; but it would almost certainly confirm the diagnosis, which would be immediately followed by a radical mastectomy and, in the coming weeks, radiotherapy as an outpatient. Routine, one might say … for everyone except the woman with breast cancer.

“M. Houlihan”. It could hardly be _she_, not after all these years (and she would surely long since have married). It would be a Mary or Martha or Mildred. _His_ M., who was “Margaret”, would be married and the other side of the country. Yet….

He could not leave it at that. He had to know. Hurriedly, he left his office before anyone could pop in for a consultation. There was not much time before his own first scheduled operation of the day. If he were to visit the ward, he must be quick. He abjured the elevator, perennially slow, for which he would have to wait, like as not in company; instead he took the stairs, in deliberate slow steps at first, and then faster. On the fifth floor, he pushed open the double doors and walked briskly down the hall, past the nurses’ station and into the ward. He looked down the rows of beds, knowing that it would not really be his M. Houlihan. Truly, he could not expect to see anyone he recognized.

Then, in the third bed from the end on the left, he saw a middle-aged woman with faded blonde hair in a short permanent wave. She was somewhat plumper than he remembered, and wore reading glasses; but she was dreadfully familiar. He drew closer, and saw that she was knitting something yellow and orange. Closer yet, and he recognized the object dangling from the needles as a sort of woolly hat. By the bed, he could see the thin lines of incipient crow’s feet behind the glasses.

In a teaching hospital, interns and residents are ubiquitous: she did not raise her eyes. He dithered, suddenly uncertain whether to speak, and picked up the chart that hung at the foot of the bed. He scanned it quickly, confirming the records he had checked in his office. Like any other patient, he assumed, she would face the operation hoping it would prove to be fibromatosis, or perhaps a fibroadenoma or ductal hyperplasia. The chances were real, but unlikely; she would surely wake instead to discover one breast removed in its entirety. After a few weeks’ recovery from surgery, she would face the debilitation of radiotherapy. In time, no doubt, there would be permanent complications from the removal of muscular and lymphatic tissue. Yet, _if_ the biopsy proved the diagnosis correct, the carcinoma would not have spread. In fact (and he almost smiled), her chances were quite good, as these things go.

“Margaret?” he said tentatively; and she raised her eyes. For a long horrible moment he thought he must have made a mistake. Then her face lit up.

“You do know you are not going to die,” were the first words on his lips. He put the chart back, pulled a chair round, and sat down beside her.

“I certainly hope not,” she replied.

“Hope has nothing to do with it,” he replied with calm certainty. “I won’t hear of it.”

He spoke only briefly: he did, after all, have the day scheduled to the minute. Still, when he left, he stole a little more time in order to transfer her to his own patient list. Oh, he had to allow that Roberts was a good man, for he could not admit that Massachusetts General had any but good doctors, least of all in his own department. But (with that certainty which people took as arrogance) Charles knew that he was himself the better surgeon. And he was determined that Margaret should have none but the best.

After rounds that afternoon, he returned during visiting hours. As he once again drew up the chair, Margaret remarked, “The nurses tell me you’ve taken over my case.”

“Did you expect otherwise?”

“Not really, I remember your arrogance of old.” Her words were sharp but her wide smile and the relief in her eyes sent a different message. “I’ve no idea what Dr. Roberts thinks of it.”

“I’m head of Oncological Surgery: he does as he’s told.” His smile tempered his arrogant drawl.

“But you didn’t think to consult me?” asked Margaret dryly.

“Ah, well,” he said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “You always were a good nurse and could recognize the best when you saw it.”

“I see _you_ haven’t changed.” She laughed.

“Nor have you.”

“Oh, please!” She brushed her hand over her shorn curls, a little embarrassed. “I’m fifteen years older. There’s no point in pretending it doesn’t show.”

“We’re all fifteen years older,” Charles said gently. “And yet, when I saw your name, it was still 1953. It always will be.”

There was a little silence. “You’ve come to tell me you are going ahead with the operation, haven’t you,” said Margaret quietly.

“Most definitely, yes,” replied Charles. He got up and pulled the curtain round. If they were talking surgery, she should have privacy. He paused, gave a final twitch to the cloth, and turned back to her. “There really is no viable alternative,” he said soberly. “The cancer does not yet seem to have reached your lymph nodes, which is the good news. But, while there is no evidence, as yet, of it having spread, it is only a matter of time. And, in my professional judgment, we should not give it that time. You’re a nurse, Margaret: you know that as well as I do.” He paused to sit down before continuing awkwardly, “Are you still in the army?”

“I resigned my commission shortly after the war.”

“And I gather you never married.” Charles suddenly remembered that her parents were divorced. “Your mother, your father … did either of them come to the hospital with you? You’ll want me to tell them, I presume.” It was an all too familiar duty.

“You presume _not_.” She said it decisively. “My family’s just gone for coffee. I’ll tell them myself when they return.”

He nodded.

There was another awkward silence. Outside, he could hear the murmurs of visitors and the quickly tapping steps of passing staff. Finally, she asked nervously, “When?”

“Tomorrow morning.” She must know that, once she’d been admitted to the ward, the operation would be scheduled as soon as possible. There was no reason for her to occupy bed space to no good purpose. It was not as though her condition were unstable. So he gave her a moment to take it in, and then added, “I see no reason for delay. Medically it would not be recommended.”

She seemed stricken. It was out of character: she had always been the most level-headed person in the operating theatre. Then again, fifteen years had passed … fifteen worrying years, of which he knew nothing. “Margaret?” he asked.

“No … no….” She flapped a hand, and then covered her mouth. Her distress was palpable; and he had no idea what to do.

“It’s just….” She fell silent, and shook her head.

“Just?”

“I’ve never told….”

Charles’ raised eyebrow spoke for him.

“My mother doesn’t know either,” she said obscurely. “I know I decided to keep it secret but—” She shook her head. “—I’ve never said anything.” She bit her lip again, and fell silent.

Charles could make nothing of this. Whatever secret Margaret had, if it went back to their days in Korea, he didn’t know it; and, if it dated from later in her life, he couldn’t know it. Most likely, he concluded, it was simply that she had not told anyone that she had cancer. The “big C”. So many patients did prefer to keep it hushed.

“If I die,” she murmured faintly, tears starting to her eyes.

“You are not going to die,” he said, clear and firm. “You have my word on it.”

She sputtered mid-sob, and covered her mouth to stifle a laugh. “Oh, Charles, you haven’t changed,” she said. “But even you can’t promise that.”

“A Winchester always keeps his word,” he said, and stuck his nose ostentatiously high. To his great satisfaction, this drew a smile.

Nearing footsteps stopped; the curtain twitched; and a long nose topped by a shock of straight dark brown hair poked through the gap. “Mom?”

Charles turned to see a thin, leggy teenager, tall for his age.

“They had hot chocolate, Mom, and carrot cake. I brought you up a piece.” The lad lifted a paper plate that bore a large crumbly wedge topped with pale icing. “Grandma’s just coming,” he added. “She got you coffee.”

And Charles’s breath caught. Suddenly, almost irrationally, he was absolutely sure just what it was that Margaret had never told her mother. And he knew who else it was who didn’t know, either.

That evening when he got home, he talked to Donna. She knew a fair bit about his time in Korea. Oh, there were things of which he had never spoken—of which most veterans never spoke—but those related to war in general, Korea in particular, and the horrors of “meatball surgery”. He’d talked a lot to her about the people, though: both the people at the 4077th and some of the more memorable cases. The name of Houlihan was not unfamiliar. So Donna expressed conventional sorrow to hear of his old colleague’s troubles and, not unexpectedly, asked if there was anything she could do.

Charles confided his suspicions about the paternity of Margaret’s son. “I suppose I might be wrong,” he finished. “I’ve not actually asked. It was hardly the moment. However, the similarity of appearance is striking.”

“Does Hawkeye know?”

“Theoretically?” Charles raised a quizzical brow. “Obviously, he might. I assume conception occurred in the usual fashion. The lad looks as though the timing would be around war’s end. We were all a bit excitable, of course. And I’ve a suspicion it wouldn’t have been the first time between them, either. However,” he hesitated, “_you_ know Pierce. Do you think, if he knew, he’d leave her in the lurch?”

“Never,” declared Donna.

“So the question is … what should I say to him?”

“Nothing!” she exclaimed. “Certainly not without her permission! And even more so since you don’t actually _know_.”

That, he had to admit, was a very good point. It was certainly not the sort of thing about which one would want to make a mistake. Embarrassing for—he totted up—at least four people, if not more.

After dinner, the children went to their room to play until bedtime; Donna also whisked upstairs. Charles retired to his study to listen to music from the comfort of his leather-upholstered wing chair. Tonight, he chose Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1. The Karajan Deutsche Grammophon recording, of course. As the second movement began, he got up, took a Waterford tumbler from the cabinet, and judiciously debated a selection of single malts before deciding on cognac. He poured a scant finger, set the glass down on the side table, and reseated himself with a comfortable sigh. Years ago, he had spent far too long in the outer darkness of war-torn Korea. He had long since determined to appreciate to the fullest the joys of civilization.

Rarely, though, could he do so without interruption. As he picked up his cognac to sip, the door opened and Donna swept in, all silk, lace and pearls. From an aesthetic perspective, she looked marvellous. Vaguely he recalled her saying something about plans for the evening, though he’d been too preoccupied to hear the details. She always did him proud when she went out.

“You look very nice,” he remarked. “Where did you say you are going tonight?”

“A benefit for the Boston Philharmonic.”

“With Joanna? Just a minute; I’ll give you a cheque.” He put down his glass and began to get up.

“No need,” she said quickly. “You’ve already donated.”

“I trust I was generous?” he replied with dry humour, eyes on her even as he reached out again for his drink.

She twinkled back. “Very,” she began; but, before she could say more, there was a rush of footsteps down the stairs. She turned to look out the door.

A cry of “Yes, she _is_ still here!” was followed by the appearance of their daughters. They must have been getting ready for bed, Charles realized, for they wore candlewick robes over floral-print flannelette nighties, fluffy slippers on their feet.

“You look _loooovely_!” said Pauline to her mother, and begged her to twirl and show off her gown. But Charlotte pressed past and rushed across the room to climb on Daddy’s lap. This necessitated some quick juggling to keep his glass from spilling. “Can I have a sip?” she asked, reaching for it.

“‘May’ you—” began Charles; but Donna interrupted. “No, darling! Daddy's brandy is not for little girls!”

Charlotte drew her hand back obediently, but sent a pout and protesting glance toward her father. He simply shook his head, and set his drink down well out of reach on the side table. Speaking past curls, he asked Donna, “A bit early for bed, isn’t it?”

“They can stay up for a while,” she replied.

“And watch TV?” asked Charlotte. “_Batman_’s on tonight.”

“Certainly not!” said Charles. “Cartoons and comics are the purview of _hoi polloi_. In this house we read real books.” He patted her back, and slid her off his lap. “There’s nothing worth watching on television, anyway. I’ll come up and read each of you a story with your cocoa, if you like.”

“Oh, don’t let them have anything more before bedtime, Charles,” urged Donna. “They’ve already brushed their teeth. And mind: this is a school night: they do need to be in bed by eight o’clock.”

He nodded an acknowledgement. She blew him a kiss from the study door, and then ... just the faintest whiff of her Chanel perfume reminded him that she had been there.

“Done your homework?” he asked Pauline.

“Yes.”

“Well, then. As you’ve been a good girl, tonight I’ll let you pick the first story.”

It was one of the Mowgli tales—an excellent choice, he thought—and having regaled them with the story of Bagheera buying the boy’s entrance to the pack, he then read Charlotte the story of Winnie-the-Pooh and the search for the Heffalump. This took them long past the appointed bedtime, a matter about which neither child complained. He was, he thought complacently, a rather over-indulgent parent, but they were good girls; and there had been a time when he had wondered if he would ever marry at all, let alone become a father. He sang a lullaby for Charlotte; then he tucked each of them in, turned out the light, and went back downstairs. The LP had long since turned itself off. He reset the record and, as the needle dropped to the opening bars, sat down with a sigh of pleasure, leaned back again into fat leather upholstery, and picked up the waiting cognac. It was getting late; he had a full day ahead of him, and no wish to arrive at work unrested; but still, before he retired, he had every intention of enjoying a pleasant hour to himself.

Later that night, after he had returned from the bathroom, his slightly damp, freshly showered skin veiled by a mulberry velvet dressing gown, he changed into pyjamas and slid between Egyptian cotton sheets. The bedside lamp clicked off; and he settled his head on eiderdown. His wife did not return from the theatre; nor did he expect her back that night—and they kept separate bedrooms, of course. He was therefore undisturbed by the sound of the front door or steps on the stair. Nevertheless, sleep evaded him. Should he mention to Margaret his friendship with Pierce? Should he mention to Pierce the encounter with Margaret? Her operation should be a confidential matter of patient privacy; but might they not wish to meet? That was, of course, to assume that they had not kept in contact; but—if her son’s parentage was, indeed, the secret she feared to take to her grave—then it was unlikely that Pierce had ever met the lad. The resemblance, after all, was too striking: Pierce saw himself in the mirror each time he shaved; and Charles had seen the same visage mirrored in Margaret’s son. And had Pierce not the right to know?

Well, maybe not. If this were Margaret’s secret, it was one she had kept for years. Yet, even if Pierce should be denied the opportunity to meet his son, did that mean he should never learn that Major Houlihan, late of M.A.S.H. 4077, was in Massachusetts General, so that he might bring her grapes and flowers, and chat over old times?

That, Charles thought, might be the cruelest prank to play.


	2. Chapter 2

**1952**

Radar wanted to get a tattoo. It was understandable. The impulse to mark his skin with some kind of crude image was only to be expected of a young man from Radar’s background. As for himself, Charles deplored such self-mutilation; but he would not have interfered in another man’s decision. Nevertheless, he watched with interest as Pierce tied himself up in knots at the very notion. And an idea was born. It came to fruition about a month later. Revenge, as they say, is a dish best served cold. One may lay plans in advance; but action must wait on the best opportunity.

There was a seminar in Tokyo on a new arterial grafting technique. Notwithstanding the fact that a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital provides its own education in advanced surgery, the doctors still vied eagerly for the opportunity to attend. Charles had no doubt that, whoever the lucky man might be, he would undoubtedly spend most—though possibly not _quite_ all—the time enjoying a much desired vacation from the vicissitudes of M.A.S.H 4077. He knew that, if the choice fell on him, he most certainly would!

Of this, Colonel Potter was undoubtedly equally aware. Nevertheless, it had been decreed from on high that someone should attend; and, as commanding officer, he had the responsibility of deciding who should go. Much to Pierce’s chagrin and Charles’s loud regrets, he decided it should be Hunnicutt.

“Let me be the first to congratulate you,” said Charles as they headed back to the Swamp. It was an airless overcast day: the tent would be sweltering; but it was hardly better outside. Tokyo would have been a breath of fresh air in so many ways.

“You lucky stiff,” added Pierce, clapping Hunnicutt on the shoulder. “What I wouldn’t give for forty-eight hours away from this hellhole.” Later, fiddling with the still as his pal packed a duffel, he begged, “Just remember to get me those magazines. And chocolate! Don’t forget the chocolate! I’ve been tasting it in my dreams for the last month and it would be nice to enjoy it awake for once.” He poured himself a drink, sniffed it doubtfully, and saluted his fortunate friend.

“Anything for you, Charles?” Hunnicutt asked as he got into the jeep to head out.

“A copy of Emerson’s _Essays_, if you can find such a thing,” Charles replied. “But I fear, even in Tokyo, that Pearl of the Orient, it will be impossible.”

“I’ll do my best,” Hunnicutt promised. He started the jeep and, with a little wave, drove off.

It was the perfect opportunity. It was delightful. Charles couldn’t stop thinking about it. Despite himself, he actually chuckled out loud at lunch that day as he contemplated the disgusted look Pierce would wear when the joke achieved its climactic effect.

“Okay, Charles,” Pierce challenged. “Just what’s so funny about chipped beef on burnt toast that it gets you laughing?”

“One has either to laugh or cry,” retorted Charles instantly. “And a Winchester never cries unless it is truly worthwhile. This swill is not worthy of _my_ tears.” With which he rose, scraped the remains of the revolting meal into the bin, and stalked out of the tent, head high. Behind him, there was laughter; he could hear Colonel Potter saying cheerfully, “Just got to admire that man’s spirit. He never gives in.”

That’s my buddy, my _confrère_, my accomplice, Charles thought as he made his way across camp. He would have preferred to enact his revenge entirely on his own; but, to pull off this plan with perfection, he had known from the start that he would have to enlist the help of someone with the essential skills. He was no artist. He knew _about_ art; but that was another matter entirely. The Colonel had a sense of humour; and Charles’s proposal tickled his funny bone. “Just as long as it’s nothing permanent,” Potter had said as he authorized the necessary pass to Seoul.

The afternoon brought in a local farmer’s child, injured by a land-mine. It took only a meaningful glance shared with Potter, and the case was handed to Pierce, who (as Charles would admit to no one out loud) was probably the best surgeon to handle it anyway, given the specifics of the wounds. The Colonel himself took care of the anaesthetic, while Radar dealt with the child’s family in his rudimentary Korean. Meanwhile, Charles busied himself in the Swamp.

Two hours later, he was interrupted in reading Proust by his irate tentmate, who flung the door open loud in protest against the local habit of using expendable kids to clear the fields. It was not the first time; nor would it be the last. Charles totally agreed in both principle and practice, but knew that there was little either he or Pierce could actually do to change custom.

“Damn it! I wish I’d gone with B.J. to Tokyo, and _you’d_ caught the case!” Pierce exclaimed. “All you do is sit here with your damned book and listen to records!”

“I assure you, I totally agree with everything you say,” Charles said, as pompously as he could manage, “at least in this matter. And I’m quite sure that, if you _had_ gone to Tokyo, the Colonel and I should have managed quite adequately. As it is, you have the rest of the afternoon free, though I cannot imagine what you intend to do with it. I suppose you _could_ spend time your time profitably in catching up with the latest medical journals. But, knowing you,” and he sneered snootily, “you will choose instead to peruse some of that less erudite reading matter you keep tucked under your mattress. However, if neither activity appeals, then, if you wish—” He shut his book with a snap. “—we can find some other way to fill the time.”

“What do you have in mind?” asked Pierce suspiciously.

“There is always the ‘Game of Kings’,” said Charles, with a gesture towards his chess set. “Assuming you know the moves,” he added provocatively, and raised a supercilious brow.

“You’re on,” Pierce declared. But, before he sat down, he fetched a cocktail glass of gin from the still.

Their first game was barely started when he began to look puzzled. He blinked, and almost missed his next move. His eyelids drooped irrevocably; and his head nodded. Shortly thereafter, Charles helped him to his cot just before he passed out, took off his boots, and went to the office to fetch the Colonel.

“You did it! You really did it!” Potter exclaimed as he entered the Swamp. He slapped his knee. “How on earth did you manage to get him sedated?”

“Doctored the still while you were in the O.R.”

“Well, you know your mark,” Potter allowed. “But you didn’t fetch me to admire Sleeping Beauty here. I gave you that pass: did you manage to get the fixings?”

“Most certainly!” said Charles, with fine display of indignation, before admitting, “Couldn’t have done it without Klinger.” It was he who had supplied the name of a little man in Seoul whom he styled the best tattooist in Korea.

“A regular Remborough,” Klinger had declared.

“That’s Rem_brandt_, you cretin,” an exasperated Charles had corrected, “or _Gains_borough.”

“Just what I said,” Klinger had agreed, nodding.

In recompense (for there was always a _quid pro quo_ with the enlisted personnel), Charles promised to bring back the dangliest earrings he could find in the market. They were also the ugliest he’d seen; but, as soon as he’d laid eyes on them, he knew they would be just to Klinger’s taste: rhinestone-studded tiers of multi-coloured crystal teardrops. It outraged every aesthetic bone in his body to buy such trash; but a Winchester always keeps his word.

The tattooist had taken Colonel Potter’s watercolour of the M.A.S.H. personnel and created a stencil, the subtleties of colour and shading reduced to simple clear lines. He had also supplied a set of oddly orange sable brushes and a selection of inks—not just the basic black, but all the colours of the rainbow as well. It had cost Charles the better part of a month’s pay; but it was worth it. At the end of his twenty-four-hour leave, he flew back by chopper.

His purchases he hid in his foot locker, and told no one. The key he secreted on his person—and not in his pocket either, lest it be picked. Perhaps by the ever-nosy Pierce (for he put nothing beyond Pierce). Or even Hunnicutt (though, taken all in all, he thought that marginally less probable). For public display, he instead pulled out a fine full bottle of Napoleon brandy and set it on top: proud souvenir of an ill-spent leave. Of course, the next time he entered the tent, the level of liquor was down by almost a third. But, by this time, Charles was all too familiar with his tentmates’ tradition of communal ownership.

Now he cleared everything off the locker, drew out the key from its hiding place, and brought out his purchases. “Hot diggetty, that pass I gave you was worth it!” chortled the Colonel, and bent over to inspect the loot. Charles went to the bed and began to draw off Pierce’s shirt, while Potter picked up the stencil and held it high so that the daylight outside the tent could shine through the pattern. “Be damned if it isn’t a perfect copy,” he declared. “I see why you wanted to go to Seoul. Some local hack at Rosie’s bar could never do a job like this.” Then he helped Charles wipe Pierce’s bare back clean of sweat and dry it so the inks wouldn’t run. The stencil was carefully shifted a couple of times to get it into the best position. Then, with Charles on the left and Colonel Potter on the right, the two of them sketched the outline of the picture through the holes and onto Pierce’s back. With the pattern thus laid out, the Colonel then went to work with the brushes, blending the inks, blocking in the colour, and adding delicate shading. Finally, he straightened up, laid down his brush, and rubbed the small of his back. “Best I can do,” he said.

Charles stepped closer to admire the finished design.

“When do you propose…?” Potter began. Then he broke off and shook his head. “No, no. Don’t tell me.”

“He’ll find out tomorrow, I think,” said Charles judiciously. “Depending on the meteorological conditions.”

The Colonel raised a brow, but asked nothing. He inspected Pierce’s back carefully, picked up the finest brush to add a few final lines to the artwork, and then patted his canvas gently on the shoulder. “Let him sleep it off,” he said. “I’ll get Radar to check the weather report.”

The next morning was a scorcher. Instead of being overcast, the sun rose early in a sky that glowed an actinic blue. The nurses donned their scantiest shorts and T-shirts, to the joy of the men, while the luckier sex had the option of stripping half-naked by midday—save, of course, for Charles, who suffered for his dignity in a shirt that got increasingly sodden in the armpits. As for Pierce, he woke late and kept his eyes well shaded with dark glasses. Others tended their tans; but he brightened the shadier side of the tent with a Hawaiian shirt while flopped in a deckchair nursing what _he_ described as the grandfather of all hangovers. About this Charles remained tactically silent. However, in the afternoon, even the lolling invalid was roped by the Colonel into making up a working party to refurbish the white cross on the helicopter pad.

“It’s a lovely day, not a cloud in sight,” he declared vigorously. “We can get that whitewash down and dried without a smudge or a smear.” Zale and Rizzo were sent to mix the paint, and could be seen a half hour later hauling a large vat of the stuff uphill in an ambulance.

“Why couldn’t you pick a more civilized season, like next winter?” Pierce complained as he was chivvied to his feet. At which Potter said simply that, if the enlisted men were to be asked to work hard in this weather, then the officers had to show a good example. He added a vague promise of “something cold” to drink afterwards, which Hawkeye interpreted as beer, Radar as lemonade, and Charles (more cynically) as a tub of water from the creek, if they were lucky. It was, however, indubitably true that the helicopter pad had needed re-marking for a while. Much of the whitewash had either been washed off by rain or covered by dirt kicked up by the wind of the rotors. Reluctantly, therefore, everyone headed uphill.

Perhaps it was the slight breeze that stirred them from lethargy. At any rate, brisk brooms had only just begun to clear the trash off the pad when the first brushes were flicked and khaki bespattered. Several of the enlisted men and a nurse or two dipped their fingers and painted war-stripes across their cheeks. Groping hands were smacked with dripping brushes. And, while it might have been an accident that Igor swiped the seat of Rizzo’s pants, it was undoubtedly deliberate when Klinger skunked Zale.

Charles stayed well out of shot. Ostentatiously, he shaded his eyes against the glare of abused whitewash, and said, “It’s a wonder, Pierce, that you aren’t out there with them. It’s just at your level, surely? Finger-painting in the nursery?”

The gibe hit its mark. Pierce flung his hair out of his eyes and stepped forward—and then, judiciously, removed his beloved Hawaiian shirt lest it fall victim, and stepped a few yards to a safe distance in order to drape it carefully over a large rock. This bared his back; but, to Charles’ disappointment, no one seemed to notice. Attention was all on the flick-fight. However, as Pierce returned, grinning broadly at the action, he stepped beyond the onlookers to head for the fun.

Margaret’s eyes opened wide as she caught sight of his “tattoo”. As she then tapped him on the shoulder, he turned to find out what she wanted, baring his back to the melee.

Klinger howled with joy, nudged Zale, and pointed.

Hearing laughter, Pierce swung round to see fingers aimed in his direction. A quick glance showed his shirt still innocently on the rock where he had left it—a movement that again exposed his back. By now, even the slowest to react were catching on.

Rizzo smirked. “Niiiiice to see a bit of colour on an officer,” he drawled.

Charles waited with bated breath for Pierce’s reaction.

He frowned. He glanced down at his more-or-less pristine slacks; his arms were also free of paint; and, though he was summer-tanned, his skin was no darker than the previous day. "Okay, okay, the joke's on me this time," he said, with a good-natured shrug. “I get that. But what is it?”

“Your back!” cried Klinger.

“I’m back?”

Charles bit his lip. The puzzled look was priceless. Oh, how frustrating it was (as he knew all too well) to be the butt of some prank and not know what!

“Your back,” said Margaret quietly, stifling a laugh. “It’s—” And she put one hand up to cover her grin. “—_on_ your back.” And she poked him hard between the shoulder blades.

Pierce twisted round trying vainly to see. He turned almost full circle in the attempt to achieve the anatomically impossible. The resemblance to a dog chasing its tail was irresistible. “Oh, come on, guys,” he begged. “Let me in on the joke, okay? What did you do?”

It was the Colonel who finally took pity on him. He led him over to one of the jeeps, took out his handkerchief, spat on it, and wiped the glass clean enough for a reflection of sorts. Pierce perched on the overheated hood and looked over his shoulder into the mirror. The picture covered his entire back from the nape of his neck to his belt and beyond. Stricken, he hurriedly shifted forward, loosened his belt, lowered his pants, and pulled at the waistband of his shorts. Inevitably, there were catcalls and whistles, and a few cries of “Take it _all_ off!”

The most likely culprit was the one person who could not possibly be guilty: B.J. was safely alibied in Tokyo. Hawkeye looked at his friends: at Radar, hiding a grin behind one hand; at Father Mulcahy, positively beaming with joy; at Charles, hands in pockets, openly chortling; at Margaret, doubled over slapping her thighs with laughter; at Colonel Potter who was chuckling uncontrollably….

Charles could see the moment when it hit him.

“_Et tu, Brute_!” cried Pierce, raising his right arm to point at the Colonel. Then he made a sudden, desperate snatch as his pants slid.

“I’m afraid I can’t claim the credit,” Colonel Potter said. “Or at least not the whole credit.” He pointed at Charles. “It was his idea; I just provided the painting.”

“Well, I must look like the tattooed man at the circus,” Pierce observed, zipping up. “Though it doesn’t hurt; so it must be fake, thank God.” He strode over to Charles’s side. “You rat!” he muttered in his ear, before lifting his colleague’s arm in a champion’s salute. “Gentlemen! Ladies!” he cried. “I give you the prankster _extraordinaire_, Charles Emerson Winchester III. We stand in the presence of greatness!” There was loud applause; and Pierce laughed. Then he swept a bow with a wide flourish of his arms.

Judging the moment to a tee, the Colonel finally stepped forward to quell the commotion. Gesturing for them all to pipe down, he said firmly, “Okay, folks, we’ve had our fun; now we need to get some work done. That cross isn’t going to paint itself.”

Pierce took time, though, to bend close to Charles’s ear. “You do know I’m going to get you back for this,” he said _sotto voce_.

“Of course,” Charles whispered back. “I would expect nothing less.”

But once the landing pad was duly brightened and they all returned downhill to camp, Charles realized that the joke was really on himself. In this revolting cesspit of creation, in this place which challenged the very concepts of decency and honour, Charles had intended no more than a momentary leavening of life. He had planned his prank as just the latest in their perpetual one-upmanship. What reaction he had expected, he couldn’t now remember. Some crass retort, a gesture of fury? Watching from the sidelines, though, he saw Pierce posture and pose for photographs, laugh at passing remarks, and thoroughly enjoy the trick played on him just as much as if he had pulled it himself. It was a revelation of grace, and a _coup de foudre_. In Hawkeye, Charles knew that he beheld a man whom he would be honoured to love.


	3. Chapter 3

**1968**

  
Charles scrubbed efficiently and thoroughly while reviewing the X-rays that hung in front of the sink. The surgery was his last of the morning, and should hold no surprises. Hands still damp, he used his knee to press open the door to O.R. 4. Everyone awaited him, the patient prepped and ready; and, after the anaesthetist had placed the mask over her face, she was not even “M. Houlihan”, previously Roberts’ patient. She was simply Charles’s 10:05 a.m. intraductal carcinoma; diagnosis to be confirmed by biopsy; if positive, then immediate full mastectomy. Even so, he avoided distraction by keeping his eyes and mind firmly focused below the neck.

Turning to the surgical nurse, he requested a No. 10 blade.

Nearly three hours later, he handed over the final closure of the incision to a third-year resident whose skill and neat stitches he trusted not to pucker the scar. Then he left without a backward glance; removed gloves, mask, and gown; washed; and donned the ubiquitous lab coat. Whereas he usually delegated the task of meeting the families of his surgical patients, he would speak to the Houlihans himself.

He had no trouble identifying them in the Visitors’ Waiting Area. After all, he had seen them, albeit briefly, at Margaret’s bedside the previous day. Her mother reminded him a little of his own—much the same trim figure and silver hair, though obviously the accent was different. He could see where Margaret got her looks. Mrs. Houlihan was concerned about her daughter, of course, but readily reassured by Charles’s suavely professional manner. She was, he suspected, afraid of the mere notion of cancer; but she was also keeping a strict grip on herself for the sake of the boy.

Margaret’s son was another matter. He asked questions, and good ones, too—searching questions that demanded more than the usual platitudes. He had obviously inherited his father’s brains; he probably did well in science at school; and Charles suspected he’d also spent time researching the subject in the library. There was a sense of _déjà vu_ as piercing blue eyes scanned his face. (He heard the phrase in his head and had to suppress a most inappropriately humorous reaction. “Pierce-ing” blue eyes, indeed.) Charles could only hope that, in the end, he left the lad less worried: Margaret’s operation had been textbook perfect, if he did say so himself.

Following a morning’s surgery, he was never in the mood to mingle in the cafeteria or go to a local restaurant. Usually, he asked Mrs. Armstrong to prepare him a lunch box. He therefore retreated to his office to enjoy a light repast of brie laid on neat slices from a crusty loaf, accompanied by olives and hot-house cucumber. Feeling deliciously _déclassé_, he peeled back the skin of his banana and ate dessert monkey-style before wiping his hands on the napkin the housekeeper had included and discreetly disposing of the debris. Then he reached for the folder that held his notes for the research paper he had promised to write for the _British Journal of Cancer_. But he found that he could not concentrate, even though it was an invited paper and the deadline loomed.

Annoyed with himself, he retreated from desk to armchair with the latest copy of the _American Journal of Medical Sciences_ and looked through the table of contents. “An epidemiological study of the incidence of tumors amongst city dwellers _versus_ country-dwellers” looked promising. He found the page, read the précis with interest, and began the introduction. But, again, he could not focus. Inwardly cursing, he flipped back, spotted another title, and turned to “Survival Rates in Trauma Medicine” by B. F. Pierce, M. D. It was not in his field, of course; but he could discuss it when his old friend came to Boston for the conference. Yet once again he did not read. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, with his hands folded across his chest.

When he’d left Korea (that benighted country!), he’d done so without a backward glance. Yet the motley crew he’d known so well persisted in, so to speak, casting the odd glance his way regardless. So, now and then, there came a letter from Sherman Potter, long since retired with Mildred to Florida. Hunnicutt sent the occasional note, though he suspected the regular Christmas cards were Peg’s doing. It was annual “Holiday” cards from Sidney Freedman, with his thriving practice in Brooklyn. Klinger was a less frequent correspondent, but had still invited him to his last wedding. And there was a standing (if never accepted) invitation to visit the ever-growing O’Reilly clan in Ottumwa, Iowa. If only at first in courtesy, Charles had felt compelled to write back. His connection with the 4077th might be tenuous, but it remained.

As for Father Mulcahy, Charles had enormous good will towards the little priest. God bless him, the Padre wrote often and always finished each letter by saying he’d pray for him. But he never said why: the good Father kept everything as secret as if it were told in confession; and for that Charles was grateful. In a maudlin moment, he had once confided rather more than he should.

When he’d been conscripted, his father had called him into the study. Charles Emerson Winchester II had, after all, served in the First World War and thought himself expert in the temptations of military service. After dwelling on the risks of brothels and the importance of prophylaxis, he had concluded heavily, “But, in war, you will meet people ostensibly of your own class—or, at least, your own rank—who are just as unsuitable in their own way. When you are away from all that is familiar, it is easy to imagine yourself in love; and, as a doctor, you will be in propinquity with pretty nurses, no doubt sweetly deferential to you.” He had then earnestly, uncharacteristically, laid a hand on Charles’s arm. “But these wartime romances never last, son. When you return home, you will realize that, of course; but then you have the messy business of breaking off the engagement. Better, far better, to avoid such entanglements in the first place.”

Charles had nodded wisely and said what was expected; but, in truth, he had paid only cursory attention. He knew himself immune to such temptations. _His_ risk would have been a whirlwind romance with a doctor—if, of course, he had not long since realized the folly of falling in love.

Given _that_ choice, he suspected his father would have preferred him to fall head over heels for a Houlihan.

He made the effort to fit a break in his schedule after lunch. It was almost unheard of for a surgeon to sit with a patient in post-op. That was the job of a nurse. But, to the surprise of the woman on duty, he showed up at the door and shooed her away. Margaret was still deeply drowsy; but, at the disturbance, she turned her head and saw him.

“Is it over?” she murmured.

“Yes. Not the outcome for which I suppose you hoped; but you came through with flying colours.” He was not sure she was awake enough to wholly grasp what he was saying; but his tone alone should be reassuring.

She drifted back off; and eventually he had to go.

Charles returned home that evening to find that Donna was back—overtly bubbly about the previous evening’s performance, though he suspected the overnight stay with Joanna had rather more to do with her mood. For one brief moment he was almost jealous that he and the children were not at the heart of her life. She was poised and perfect, everything a Winchester could hope for in a bride. And then he was glad, for her (if not for himself), since her life was full in a way that his would never be. Joanna was no threat. She knew the rules. It was perhaps a wonder she had resisted family pressure to make a good match; she was a librarian at Portia Law School, and respectability counted for much. Certainly, a “Boston marriage” would have been strongly resisted. (Also, Donna had wanted children as much as he.) Joanna was devoted to good works: improvement projects for the Franklin Park Zoo, fundraising for the public library, and sitting on the board for the Radcliffe’s scholarship fund. It left her with little time for anything else—except, of course, her unexceptionable friendships. _He_ knew his wife and Joanna had been lovers for years; her family probably did not. Joanna had a rather nice little bow-front terrace house in South End; she had a degree from Smith; and she could be trusted to serve the right wine with each course. The Winchesters dined with her every few months; her parents were often fellow guests; her young cousin sometimes babysat Pauline and Charlotte on Mrs. Armstrong’s nights off. It was all very civilized. As it should be.

“How was the operation?” Donna asked, after dinner, when the housekeeper had gone to the kitchen to do the dishes and the children were watching _Tarzan_. She did not specify which operation; nor did Charles play coy.__

“Textbook,” he replied.

“Did you have a chance to talk to her … about old times, if nothing else?”

He shook his head. “I’d never trouble a patient in post-op for anything short of an emergency,” he said. “Tomorrow’s soon enough; and that depends on how she’s going along.”

However, when Charles dropped in to see the patient the following day, she was still weak and in some pain, and certainly in no fit state to answer questions. He made a mental note to check her medication, and then stayed for perhaps ten minutes, talking inconsequentially. Then official visiting hours began; and he spotted her family coming through the doors to the ward. So he smiled and said good-bye, and went back to his office and waiting paperwork. Still, Donna was not the only one eager to know more. The following day he came somewhat earlier. The son would surely be in school at that hour, and presumably would be shepherded to the hospital by his grandmother. So the coast should be clear, so to speak; and he and Margaret could talk without risk of interruption.

In fact, it was she who had questions for him. “Oncology?” she asked. “I thought, back in Korea, you had plans to be Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery.”

“And I was for a time. But some years ago my dear sister Honoria was—” He hesitated tactfully. “—in _your_ position. Now, I agree that she ignored symptoms for too long; also her G.P., for all his high fees, was an incompetent idiot. But, from a surgical perspective, she had a very difficult time of it.” He dropped his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Margaret put in gently. “I know you and she wrote all the time.”

He bowed slightly in acknowledgment of her sympathy, and then continued, “One thing led to another; and, in the end, I became Chief of Surgical Oncology.”

“Inevitably,” Margaret finished for him, with a slight laugh.

“_Apropos_ which,” he said smoothly, “let me assure you that your wound is healing nicely.”

“I am a nurse, you know Charles,” she said crisply, “with some experience of surgical recovery.”

“Of course,” he allowed. “I just thought you might want to reassure your family. They’ve been very devoted, visiting you daily.” He hesitated. He had so many questions, most of them about that very family. So, each evening, had Donna; and he had been unable to give answers.

“What is it, Charles?” said Margaret. With a sudden look of worry, she added, “_Is_ something wrong?” She gave a quick downward glance at her bandaged chest.

“No, no,” he reassured her. “Medically, all is well. No, it’s just—” He broke off, embarrassed. “I shouldn’t ask. It’s too personal. It’s just that … my wife, you see—”

“Your wife!” exclaimed Margaret. “I didn’t know you were married; you never said. What’s her name?”

“Donna.” Automatically, he answered the coming queries before she could ask. “We have two daughters, Charlotte and Pauline. Six-and-a-half and going-on-eight.”

“How lovely for you.” She beamed.

“Well, I’ve told Donna about meeting you,” he explained, “and—well, you know what women are like.”

“I should,” she said, amused. “Being one.”

“Exactly.” He smiled back at her. “She has a positive _ferment_ of questions. If it would not be too impertinent of me…?”

Margaret looked doubtful—she had, he suspected, been the target of questions before—but gave him a somewhat forced smile and replied, “Ask away!” And then added, with greater caution, “I can’t promise I’ll always answer, though.”

“Of course,” he said at once. He left a pause for sudden second thoughts; but, since she did not immediately say she felt sleepy or in pain, he decided it was fair to go on.

“You’ve probably guessed that my wife is curious about your son … and your surname.”

“Yes,” said Margaret. “It’s usually that.” 

“But … forgive me Margaret, but _why_ didn’t you marry Pierce? Surely he—” At the look on Margaret’s face, he broke off. “Well, honestly! I’m not blind! I know you haven’t said, but … I’m not _blind_!”

“No, of course not. He does look like him, doesn’t he?”

“The spitting image,” declared Charles. “And Pierce has his faults but I could have sworn he would have stood by you.”

“I know,” she admitted. “He even said as much after those three days in Tokyo … when we said goodbye.” She sighed softly. “That’s why I never told him, you see.”

Charles shook his head in mystification.

She must have interpreted his expression as a query, for she replied in a firm voice, “Well, I never told anyone! Not my mother, and certainly not my father.” Her face darkened. “Dad had far too much to say about ‘Howitzer’ Al Houlihan’s daughter getting herself knocked up. And when I refused to name the father, he was livid.” She gave a bitter laugh. “If I’d told him, then I might’ve well have told Hawkeye directly, for I think Dad would have gone after him with a shotgun, if you know what I mean. Not that it would’ve been necessary, I’m sure. If Hawkeye had known, he'd have insisted on marrying me, I’m sure he would. And I doubt if I would have been strong enough to resist.” She looked past Charles, across the room. “So what would have happened?” she mused. “I would still have had to resign my commission. I'd have wound up a wife and mother … _just_ a wife and mother. Maybe I would have had a chance of being a nurse again some time in the future, when I stopped changing diapers and spooning Gerber’s baby food. That’s _if_ I could have found a job, of course.” She looked squarely at Charles, who looked at his feet.

She sighed. “Or I dare say we'd have got divorced. Sooner rather than later, probably. You know how it is with these war-time romances! God knows, I already knew it from my marriage to Donald!”

“But not to tell him he has a son, Margaret!” he protested.

“You think that was wrong?”

“You think it was _right_?”

"Well, it seemed right at the time,” she said sharply. “When Ben was born we lived the other side of the country from Hawkeye. _I_ worked night shifts in the local hospital to keep a roof over our heads; and I dare say _he_ was busy getting a practice started back in Crabapple Cove. I'm sure he’d have resented anyone or anything that took his time away from his work. He wasn’t ready to be a father to a baby.”

“Yet you called him Ben,” Charles said flatly.

They met each other’s eyes silently. “Even so,” Margaret said quietly; and Charles sighed.

“It can be hard on a child,” he said after a moment. “Boys can be cruel, you know.”

“My mother lives with us,” she offered. “That may lend some respectability. And she was certainly a help when Ben was small.” She shook her head. “What can I say, Charles? It’s the decision I made. Yes, I made it for all of us; but I made it long ago. There’s no changing it now.” She sighed. “I admit there's a little part of me that will always care for Hawkeye—”

Yes, thought Charles.

“—and I expect he still remembers me. But we are just too different,” she said comfortably. “As long as we’re apart, we can stay fond of our memories.”

And Charles’s eyes dropped.


	4. Chapter 4

**1952-53**

  
One tried and true method of concealing one’s proclivities is, of course, to feign interest elsewhere. When he had first been sent from Tokyo into the outer darkness (so to speak), Charles had briefly wondered about Major Margaret Penobscott, career Army nurse that she was. Of course, she was recently married, but to a husband stationed far enough away that he was more a surname than a man—and hardly even that, given that most of the camp still referred to the Head Nurse by her maiden name. She _claimed_ a desperate desire to see her husband; but, as (at least in the first weeks after Charles’s transfer) Colonel Potter was loath to allow passes to anyone, this might be interpretable as a cover story. It seemed reasonable, therefore, to make a cautious attempt to see how _simpatico_ she might really be. Sadly, Charles quickly discovered that, despite her avowed passion for culture, she was a philistine at heart. Furthermore, even the slightest of inquiries brought lurid tales of Frank Burns and “Hot Lips”, not to mention her powerful attraction to (and for) anyone with stars on their uniform. The people of the 4077th knew everything about everyone, or thought they did.

Charles had always been aware of the dangers of loose lips, which sink far more than ships. He was a cautious man; and the claustrophobic society of the M.A.S.H. unit only made him more so. The probability that there was in camp at least one other man of his own nature … well, there might be, he supposed. However, statistically speaking, such an individual would almost certainly be among the enlisted personnel. That was impossible for so many reasons. “Particular friendships” across the ranks were something he'd never dare: too great a chance of discovery, not to mention blackmail. It behooved him, therefore, to take stock of his peers.

In many ways, the society of the Swamp was like a college fraternity house, though its members were older (if not always wiser). Few women crossed the threshold, save the occasional Korean laundress and—inevitably—Major Houlihan, who considered herself to have ingress anywhere, especially when she had a complaint to make. She actually came _less_ often during Charles’s tenure, as the others pointed out when she barged in, barely announced by a bang on the door, one day when he was _déshabillé_.

“When Frank Burns was here, she treated the place as if they were married,” said Hunnicutt.

“Except for the sex,” added Pierce. “For that they went to her tent. Not that we didn’t do our best to catch them at it. A man needs a little entertainment in this place.” He winked.

“Speak for yourself,” said Hunnicutt. “I would never,” he added blandly to Charles, “dream of interfering with another man’s affairs.”

“Or another man’s _affaires_,” leered Pierce meaningfully, shaping an hourglass with his hands.

_Very_ frat house, Charles thought. However, with even less privacy. The other men did not only sleep mere feet away, they stripped in front of one another, washed communally, and redressed in the Swamp under each other’s eyes. While Hunnicutt was prudish about baring the nether portions of his torso anywhere other than the men’s shower (the more so since all and sundry seemed to feel free to walk into the Swamp), Pierce seemed only minimally aware of societal norms—the result, perhaps, of long hours with his boyhood pals at some communal swimming hole in rural Maine. Charles, who had attended a private school, was not unfamiliar with the casual nudity of the locker room. He was also aware of its temptations … and its dangers.

In the summer heat, the sides of the tent were rolled up to let in any breeze; and, in the evening when the lights were on, there could be no secrets inside. It was rare therefore for any of the men to dare sleep completely without clothes. There were, after all, women in camp: Colonel Potter had standards; and Major Houlihan was fearsome on the warpath. Still, a man who sleeps in sweaty shorts will rise with them stuck revealingly close. Once he has showered, he will return to his tent wanting clean clothes from the skin out. Feigning sleep, Charles caught more than one tantalizing glimpse through his lashes before someone tossed a pillow at him telling him to get out of bed before he missed roll-call.

Hunnicutt was obviously, deeply, passionately in love with his wife. He talked about her, looked at her photograph, reread her letters, and wrote her almost daily. On the other hand, nothing touched Benjamin Franklin Pierce deeply except medicine. He might seem to fall in love easily; but, after sharing a tent with him for a few months, Charles knew otherwise. Certainly Pierce chased after every nurse newly assigned to the 4077th; but he moved on without a backward glance each time his latest _inamorata_ was rotated out. Why shouldn’t he? There was no future in any of his flirtations. For all his overt womanizing, rampant libido, and apparent promiscuity, he rarely actually consummated his _affaires_. There was a lot of touch and tickle (and an enormous amount of posturing); but Charles could count on the fingers of one hand—probably with some left over—the number of women with whom Pierce had actually had sexual intercourse. In certain spheres, the man’s personal morality was rigid: he rarely went beyond innuendo with any nurse he knew to be married; and the generality of _un_married nurses made no secret of their aspirations to be wed. As this consummation so very clearly did not interest Pierce, the new ones were warned off by the others as soon as they arrived. What then was a healthy young doctor to do?

Barring the occasional courtesy of a turned back, there was no privacy. Yet the male animal in its prime experiences a certain physical imperative. Thus the odour of dirt was not the only smell Charles had to learn to tolerate. Lust has its own scent. Sharing a confined space meant inevitably, unwillingly, the men learned one another’s fantasies and the signs which revealed when one of them had given in to the comfort of his own hand.

Now Hunnicutt was as straight as a die. He was also peculiarly prudish, and viewed even self-gratification as some kind of betrayal of his wife. To combat temptation, therefore, he worked himself to exhaustion as often as he could, especially during the lulls between battles, when he helped the local villagers or lent a hand to Father Mulcahy at the orphanage. Charitable labour meant he slept more soundly.

Pierce, though, was the opposite. After a date with one of the nurses, whether they went openly to the Officers’ Club or hid in the supply cupboard, he would return to the Swamp and burrow under the covers. His nights would be restless, and his bedding crumpled and stained when he rose the next morning.

And Charles himself?

“Playing Mahler, again, I see,” Pierce remarked quietly one morning, after Hunnicutt had left early to go off with Father Mulcahy on some mission of mercy, “and not those dead children thing-a-mes.”

“_Kindertotenlieder_,” Charles corrected in his most blasé tone, “are one of the most sublime and pure expressions of grief ever composed.”

“Well, it wasn’t grief that occupied you last evening,” quipped Pierce. “It seemed to me there was altogether a more _uplifting_ kind of atmosphere when I got back to the tent.”

“Mahler’s Fifth Symphony is an old favourite of mine,” Charles allowed.

“I’ve noticed,” said Pierce. “Anyway, I’m taking my sheets to the laundry in the village. I can take yours too if you want.”

Charles glowered. It was bad enough having to share the tent and having absolutely no privacy, knowing the others must know … all. But to _talk_ about it was just too much!

“Don’t get huffy, Charles,” Pierce said calmly. “You’re human, just like the rest of us.”

Had he said one more word Charles thought he might have hit him; but Pierce just bent and stripped the sheets off the cot, bundling them with his own before he left the tent, whistling.

Yet, if it had been awkward sharing quarters even before he fell in love, Charles found it infinitely more difficult after. Even as they scrubbed up, an accidental touch could be electrifying. In the Swamp, though, Pierce—no, Hawkeye—no, _Pierce_ was downright terrifying. His shorts stretched revealingly tight as he bent to pull on his pants; he twisted lithely into his shirt, preened in the little shaving mirror, stretched as he combed his hair, and crowned all with a dab of cologne. And for nothing more than the dubious benefit of a date with a new nurse. “You’ll look prettier than she does,” Charles called across the tent, covering his pleasure in the spectacle with yet another acerbic insult.

“No one could look prettier than Nurse Lacey,” called back Hawkeye. No … Pierce. (No, Hawkeye.)

“Don’t give him the satisfaction,” said Hunnicutt, not even bothering to look up from his wife’s latest letter.

Actually _approaching_ Hawkeye would obviously be futile. The man’s preferences clearly lay elsewhere. Yet, as tentmate in the summer heat, the man was impossible to ignore. Hedonist that he was, he saw no reason to suffer discomfort. So Charles had to endure the daily sight of Hawkeye, stripped as far as decency dared. He lounged, legs spread, as he read his mail. He lay on his bed, head propped on one hand, flipping the pages of one of his girlie magazines with the other, with evident signs of incipient arousal. He played strip poker down to his skivvies, and lost both his final hand and final garment with insouciance.

“You’d never do that if there were ladies present,” said Major Freedman dryly.

“Try me,” dared Hawkeye.

“You know, I might just take you up on that some time.” The psychiatrist looked up from his cards and added laconically, “Is Major Houlihan—sorry, is she Penobscott now?—is she getting off duty soon? I’d like to see her take you on.”

“I’d like to see her, period,” declared Hawkeye. “Especially if she loses.”

“Keep it clean,” said Potter, not bothering to look up.

Charles threw in his hand, got up slowly, and announced to all assembled that he’d lost enough for the night and he thought he’d go for a walk. As the door shut loudly behind him, he heard Potter say, “I fold,” and the sound of Sidney Freedman hauling in his loot. “Put your pants on, Hawk,” was the last thing Charles heard as he walked off. He was pretty sure it came from Hunnicutt.

Not for the first nor the last time, it was the scenic route he took to Rosie’s bar.

Then there was the day that Charles, having just handed over to Hunnicutt in Post-Op, found Hawkeye _in flagrante delicto_. It was a warm autumn night, and—trusting, no doubt, to a sense of time he was too engrossed to check—he had thrown back sheet and blanket. His hand froze as the light flicked on; and Charles caught … rather less of an eyeful than he could have wished for, but more than was good for him. His breath seized; he stared for several moments longer than he should have; and then he said with as much aplomb as he could summon, “Excuse me, I think I’m wanted back in Post-Op.” He even had the presence of mind to turn the light off as he left.

He found himself walking into the Officers’ Club. It was late; and, although Klinger was still behind the bar, it was clear from his face that the last thing he wanted was another customer. Even so, he poured Charles a gin and tonic (with real gin from a bottle, not the stuff from the still) and asked him how things were doing. “Be like that,” he muttered, as Charles—locked in his own thoughts—turned and cast an eye vaguely round the room. Father Mulcahy was pounding out something jazzy on the piano. At an earlier hour, there would likely have been dancing; but not tonight: there were only someone at a slot machine, and a corporal and nurse quietly chatting, heads close at one of the tables.

Leaving Klinger to flounce down the bar and polish glasses, Charles crossed the empty floor to stand beside the piano, glass in hand, feigning to listen to the music.

“Everything all right, my son?” asked Mulcahy, looking up.

“Just ‘peachy keen’, Padre,” said Charles blandly, staring at the posters on the walls.

Mulcahy took the hint. He finished the piece he was playing, and then asked if there were requests. Charles silently sipped his drink.

“Can you manage ‘Tennessee Waltz’?” said the guy at the slots.

“Well, I’ll try.” Mulcahy swung into the tune, a little hesitantly at first. As he got going, Klinger called, “After that, maybe ‘Goodnight Ladies’—and the gents can take the hint, too.”

Charles ignored it all, barring the ‘hint’ that the Club would be closing for the night. He stayed until halfway through the last song, debating with himself whether he should head for Rosie’s; but then he decided that she probably wouldn’t stay open much longer either. So he put his empty glass on the bar, bade Klinger good night, and left. Slowly, he headed for the Swamp, hoping that Hawkeye would have had time to both finish _and_ fall asleep.

Behind him, he heard the door to the Club open, hurrying footsteps, and a low cry of “Hold up!” from the Padre. He continued regardless; but this time Mulcahy was not taking no for an answer. He broke into a run to catch up, and—only slightly out of breath—appeared at Charles’s side saying, “I know you don’t want to talk, Major; but you are clearly in some distress.”

“I’m fine.”

“No,” said Mulcahy consideringly, “you’re actually not.” And he dragged at Charles’s elbow, halting him. “Please. I don’t know what it is; but I do know that you’ve spent the afternoon in Surgery and the evening in Post-Op, and right now you probably ought to be snoring in your bed. May I offer you a cup of coffee? An ear, if you want it; but at least a cup of coffee.”

By the bad camp lighting, Charles could see the priest look up at him, with that pleading appeal in his eyes. (And, of course, right now, he really did _not_ want to go to the Swamp.) So he nodded.

In his tent, Mulcahy bustled about starting the stove, putting on a pot of water, hunting up mugs and instant coffee and sugar. “I’ve no milk or cream,” he muttered apologetically.

“That’s quite all right,” murmured Charles. It was all absurdly civilized. He sat on a folding chair, watching warily as the ritual of setting-him-at-his-ease progressed to its conclusion, then accepted the mug, sipped, and said thank-you.

“Now,” said Mulcahy, perching on his own chair, mug in hand. “What did you want to say to me?”

“I don’t really feel that I can,” said Charles. “You are a Catholic, but I am not.”

The priest looked at him searchingly. “I don’t think this is a matter of religion, my son,” he said gently. “Unless your own beliefs are at odds with whatever is troubling you.”

“It’s a private matter,” said Charles stiffly.

“I do keep things private,” said Mulcahy with a gentle smile. “It kind of goes with the territory.”

“Under the seal of the confessional, certainly; but, as I said, I am not Catholic.”

“Oh!” Mulcahy beamed as the problem clarified itself. “My son, I assure you, anything said in here I will keep in confidence. I shan’t speak of it to anyone in camp—or out of camp, for that matter. It will be between you, me, and God. And—” he added, seeing doubt in Charles’s face, “—you need not be embarrassed, you know. There’s very little you can say that I haven’t heard before.” He smiled, a bit amused. “People seem to think that priests live very closeted lives; but, in fact, we know quite a bit about the seamy side. _That_ goes with the territory, too. People tell us things, you know: things they’d never admit to anyone else; things they fear to admit to themselves.”

“A Winchester is never afraid!”

Gently, Mulcahy said, “You’re as human as the rest of us, Major. We’re all scared sometimes.” He paused for a thoughtful look at Charles. “You’re not drinking your coffee. Don’t let it get cold.”

Charles looked down at the mug in his hand. “Oh,” he said. He had a suspicion that Mulcahy rivalled Sidney Freedman in his ability to read people’s tells. They both tended to win at poker.

“You don’t fit in very well with the other people at the 4077th, do you?” said Mulcahy thoughtfully. “Except, of course, in the Operating Theatre. Being who you are is very important to you; and you don’t see why the fact that other people are different means that _you_ have to change to suit _them_. The tyranny of the majority, I think you might say.” He paused—probably, Charles thought, for a reaction.

And perhaps, Charles realized, he got one. Conscious response he could try to control; but he but had no idea what that sharp eye might spot. It were better to say nothing. “Alexis de Tocqueville,” he found himself saying automatically.

“Yes, you have an excellent education,” said Mulcahy with a nod. “But then a Winchester would, wouldn’t you?” He set aside his own mug, put his elbows on his knees, and leaned forward earnestly. “There is nothing wrong with being different, Major. We are all different in our own way, though some of us are more aware of it.” He paused, and asked, “What does it mean to you … to be ‘a Winchester’?”

“In comparison with this place?” Charles retorted. “Everything! It means culture and cuisine, decent music, books that are worth reading, conversation about matters that _don’t_ pertain to wounds, war, and women.”

Mulcahy smiled gently. “Oh, come now, Major. It’s not just the music and the books and the fancy food. After all, even here, you’ve done your best to surround yourself with the things that _you_ value—just as B.J. talks about his wife, Hawkeye about his father and Crabapple Cove, Colonel Potter fills his office with pictures of horses, and Radar sleeps with his teddy. No one wants to be here; yet everyone will have memories when the war is over—some they can’t bear to remember, and others they’ll never forget. I know I’ll miss the friends I’ve made here at the 4077th. I’m not sure,” he smiled, “if ‘a Winchester’ is allowed to admit it; but I dare say you’ll miss us too.”

“To some degree,” Charles admitted, then hastened to add, “though, of course, I’ll get over it. Quite quickly, I’m sure … once I get home.”

“So tell me of home, then.”

“Boston?” Charles was surprised. “I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Boston; but I dare say you’ve seen a picture or two, maybe read about it.”

“No, I mean _your_ home. You have a father, a sister. But what of your friends? Is there a sweetheart you left behind?” Mulcahy shook his head. “No, no. You’d get letters from her, have her photograph tucked in your wallet … if Winchesters do that.”

For a long moment, Charles just stared at him. It was not a question he had expected. “Mary,” he said finally. “Her name was Mary. _Is_ Mary, I mean: she’s not dead. She’s the daughter of one of my father’s friends, John Montgomery Forbes. She was doing an English degree at Radcliffe when I was an intern. I squired her round for a couple of years; but of course she graduated long before I finished my surgical residency. She met her future husband when she became his private secretary—excellent match, old family, whirlwind romance.” He shrugged.

“Well,” said Mulcahy, leaning back in his chair and stretching out his legs comfortably. “You don’t exactly sound broken-hearted over a lost love. In fact, you sound like a man who dated a girl because your father knew her father, and it was deemed by _them_ to be a suitable match.” In the gentlest of conversational tones, he added, “Were you ever in love before college? In high school, perhaps?”

“I went to a private school, Padre,” said Charles, with only a faint hint of his usual snootiness. “A boys’ school. The same one my father went to, and his father before him.”

“I went to our local parochial school,” said Mulcahy, almost dreamily, and crossed his stretched-out legs at the ankle. “It was co-educational. But I suppose one could call the seminary an ‘all-boys school’ in a way. So I’m not entirely unfamiliar with the sort of establishment you refer to.” He smiled innocently. “Were you in love with anyone there?”

For a moment Charles hardly took in the words, they slipped by so easily. Then he turned white. He could feel the blood draining from his face, and felt oddly cold and a little dizzy. He tried to take a deep breath to settle himself; but there seemed to be a weight on his chest. Almost without registering, he saw Mulcahy sit suddenly forward with a look of concern.

“You know,” he whispered. “How?”

“Well, it would be more accurate to say that I’ve had my suspicions,” Mulcahy admitted. “As to how? Well, there are many reasons why men come to the priesthood. For me,” he paused, reminiscently, “ah, well … I wanted to serve the Lord our God, and do so by helping others. But,” he went on more firmly, “there were others I met at the seminary whose motivations were different. Some were not running to something better—to Some_one_ better—so much as they were running away: from being ‘different’, if you see what I mean. The celibacy of the priesthood has much to offer in that regard. If you run from temptation, run from disgrace, run from … oh, from the expectations of your family.” He paused, and cast a thoughtful eye on Charles. “_Your_ family, now: you are ‘Charles Emerson Winchester III’; and I take it that means your father is ‘Charles Emerson Winchester II’…?”

Charles nodded, his throat still too choked for speech.

“And I dare say your grandfather, or maybe great-grandfather, was ‘the First’. A veritable dynasty of Winchesters, in fact.” Seeing that his audience was somewhat recovering from his shock, Mulcahy sat back once again in his chair and clasped his hands in his lap. “This does suggest to me that there are expectations … that you _not_ get arrested for public indecency—” Charles flushed. “—that you do not go to prison, blight your career, or bring disgrace on the family name—” There was a choked, incoherent protest which Mulcahy ignored. “—but, even more, that you marry and have a family, in particular a son, a ‘Charles Emerson Winchester IV’. Am I right?”

Charles nodded again.

“So … _was_ there anyone at school? Or college? Or since? And—” Mulcahy’s voice took on a sharp note. “—I do _not_ mean your father’s friend’s daughter Mary.”

Over the course of that chat, which went on almost until dawn, Charles unburdened himself. Of the crush his fourteen-year-old self had had on the school’s drama teacher, who had proved to be happily married and father of three; of hormonally-driven communal dormitory ‘hi-jinks’, which meant nothing; of drunken college fumbling, humiliatingly repudiated the following morning; of the gentleman’s club in Boston that he occasionally visited; and the compulsion and relief of nameless bathhouse encounters on leave in Tokyo.

Before he slipped into loquacity, though, he lamented his father’s inevitable disappointment. “Not that he guesses,” he hastened to explain. “But I let him down, you see. Always, I let him down. I’m never good enough for a Winchester. _He_ was on Eisenhower’s staff during the Second World War; he expected no less of me, of course. My being drafted as a mere army doctor seemed the last straw … until I was transferred from my position in Tokyo to the exile of a M.A.S.H. unit. You ask about school? Why, I remember his reaction when I quit the football team! Winchesters,” Charles explained to Mulcahy, “always play on the school team. My father was a quarterback. _The_ star quarterback. How could I possibly explain to him that even in regular physical education classes, I feared to betray myself in the locker room?” Charles blushed, and hid his face in his hands. “But the team!” he went on, half stifled. “He’d told me some of what went on himself, you know; and he laughed. I couldn’t dare it. If they’d guessed, if they’d—” Charles broke off with a shudder. “I don’t know what they’d have done; but hazing would have been the least of it. And from what he’d told me of the hazing, it flat out terrified me. And what with all the joshing, and butt-smacking, and … and casual nudity, you know.”

Mulcahy listened to all of this, head cocked to one side. Then he said, “Ah! I see. Is it B.J. or is it Hawkeye?”

Charles lifted his face from his hands and stared in astonishment.

Though he did not quite talk the night through, it was much later when he made his way back to the Swamp. On the way, he was stopped by Klinger—on guard duty in a pink slip, feather boa, and high heels—who challenged him for the day’s password.

“I’m really not in the mood,” Charles said, and pushed on by.

“Hope you feel better in the morning,” Klinger called after him; and he remembered that he had, in the Officers’ Club, been more than a little short with the man. So he turned, and waved his hand. Then he pushed open the door of the Swamp to find both Hunnicutt and Hawkeye sound asleep and snoring. And, somehow, after unburdening himself to the Padre, he found that it was easier to fall asleep himself.

With the coming of autumn, Hawkeye no longer shed his uniform as much as possible. This was both regrettable, since the lean bare body was infinitely desirable, and a great relief for precisely the same reason. Negotiations at Panmunjom broke down, fighting began again, and the 4077th bugged out from quarters they’d almost got used to. The new camp was barely set up when the wounded started to arrive. After that, there came a period when Charles was too tired to think of anything except the need to get enough sleep for a steady hand in surgery.

Christmas came and went; and the new year progressed from snow to sludge to spring. The war, on the other hand, did not seem to progress at all. Help was _again_ needed at a Battalion Aid Station, this time because their doctor had come down with dysentery. And as, last time, Hunnicutt had gone, and Pierce and Potter the time before that, so it was perforce Charles who was dispatched. He spent the next forty-eight hours at the Aid Station closest to Hill 403—as pestilent a hell-hole as there ever would be—with the corpses of men who had not survived piled around the scanty shelter that housed the wounded who just might make it if they got the medical care they needed in time. Those forty-eight hours felt like seventy-two before finally he was free to depart.

Charles drove towards the relative safety of the 4077th M.A.S.H. as fast as road and jeep would let him. At the Aid Station, he had stayed sober as a surgeon; on the return trip he drank liberally from his hip flask. In the end, he drove (as one sometimes does in such circumstances) off the side of the road, past a large prickly shrub, and over some very bumpy terrain until the jeep came to a sudden stop in a stream. There he sat for at least five minutes, shaken by the sudden departure from the unmetalled surface.

Presently he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned his head to find Hawkeye looking at him solicitously.

“Are you all right?”

“I think so.”

“Here, let me help.” Hawkeye held out his hand. “You came down that hill at quite a clip.”

Charles grabbed the proffered assistance, climbed out of the jeep with some difficulty, and stumbled through the water, leaning heavily on the other man for support. They lurched to the grassy side of the stream, where his balance gave way on the slight slope and he slid suddenly, held up from falling only by Hawkeye’s arm. His weight dragged the other man down, and they found themselves on their backsides. Only inches beyond their feet, the slight current plaited the surface of the water.

Charles stared at the stream. Slowly he became aware that it must have been deep enough to come over the top of his boots, because his socks were wet.

He turned his head, and saw Hawkeye. “What are you doing way out here?” he asked.

Hawkeye bit his lip on an incipient grin. “Well, it’s not actually so ‘way out here’, you know,” he replied, almost apologetically. “We’re only about five hundred yards from the camp.”

Charles put his hands up to his head and blinked several times. “I’m drunk.”

“You’re also hurt,” said Hawkeye.

“I am?” Charles looked down at himself. “Oh.” There was a long jagged blood-stained tear in his left pants’ leg. “I am,” he said wonderingly. He felt nothing.

“Let me have a look.” Hawkeye reached for the buckle of Charles’s belt, only to find his hand grabbed in vague protest.

“Charles,” said Hawkeye gently. “I need to get your trousers off to see how badly you’re hurt.”

“No, let me,” Charles slurred; but he could only fumble in a futile attempt to force the end of the belt back through the loops of his pants.

“You’re in shock,” Hawkeye said firmly, ignoring the additional matter of the liquor on Charles’s breath. He deftly unbuckled the belt, undid the button, and unzipped the pants. There then followed an awkwardness as he maneuvered to lower and remove them sufficiently for the damage to the calf to be examined. “I think it’s superficial,” he said finally. “Deep enough to bleed a bit; but you shouldn’t even be left with a scar.”

Charles nodded. Vaguely, he felt it starting to hurt. Also, there was a breeze, which had been inconsequential through cloth, but was curiously chill on bare legs.

Hawkeye felt down the leg. It should, Charles thought, have felt a caress. In the circumstances, though, he was unfit to react as he otherwise would; and, in any case, he knew the touch was merely professional.

“That ankle is sprained badly.”

Charles shivered suddenly and convulsively.

“Let’s get your trousers up,” said Hawkeye, quickly. His tone was matter of fact, which helped enormously with the embarrassment of the next couple of minutes.

Charles was still shivering. He tried to stop, but couldn’t. And it’s not that cold, he thought. I was driving along here just a while ago; and it _wasn’t_ that cold.

“Here,” Hawkeye got up, took off his jacket, and draped it around Charles’ shoulders.

I’m in shock, Charles realized, and clutched the jacket tight.

“Why don’t we stay here for a bit while you warm up,” said Hawkeye gently, “and then I’ll help you back to camp. Or, if you can’t, I’ll get a jeep.” He sat back down, put an arm around Charles’s shoulder, and pulled him close.

To Charles’s horror, tears suddenly began to roll down his cheeks. He turned his face into Hawkeye’s shoulder to hide them. Then, suddenly, desperately, he had his arms around him, clinging on as if for dear life. For a moment, startled, Hawkeye pulled back. Then he awkwardly patted Charles’s back as he sobbed.

It was several minutes before the lachrymose spasm ceased; and Charles relaxed his grip. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, deeply embarrassed. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” said Hawkeye, ignoring the dampness soaking through his shirt. “I was at Battalion Aid myself a couple of months ago. Remember?”

Only just loudly enough for Hawkeye to make out his words, Charles murmured, “There was a man with only one arm and one leg. The other side was blown off. They brought him in; and he died before I could do anything.” He raised his head and met Hawkeye’s eyes. “He just looked at me,” he said, “alive one minute and dead the next. So they took him back out.”

“I know,” said Hawkeye softly.

His eyes are so close and so kind, Charles thought, and sat up a little straighter. “When I left,” he added, “he was there by the door, looking at me from the heap of dead bodies as I drove away.” He groped in his pocket for his handkerchief, and blew his nose.

“‘_The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living,_’” quoted Hawkeye.

“Cicero,” Charles murmured. “Yes, you understand.” He shook his head at his naïveté. “But until now I didn’t.” He smiled wryly. “I _loathe_ the 4077th, you know. I suppose that’s hardly a surprise: I haven’t exactly made a secret of it. I didn’t want to be here; and I don’t want to stay.”

“You could say that of all of us.”

“Yes, but I thought nothing could be worse. And now I’ve seen hell.”

Hawkeye said nothing.

Charles blew his nose again, and awkwardly shoved his handkerchief back in his pocket. “On the way back, I couldn’t stop thinking about that dead man.” He wiped his eyes with his hand. “So I started drinking, you know. And somehow, as I drank, he began to look like you. So I drank more, and then—” He gestured towards the tilted jeep.

Hawkeye frowned a little, but said nothing.

“You know I love you, don’t you?”

For a moment, Hawkeye seemed about to speak. Then he dropped his eyes, and remained silent.

“I’m sorry; I truly am. I shouldn’t have said that. It is not a thing I am proud of, that I can feel that way. I’m sure you don’t want to hear it. It’s just,” Charles faltered, “I _could_ not see what I have seen at Battalion Aid and not speak to you.”

There was a flush spreading on Hawkeye’s cheeks. He swallowed, hard, looking beyond Charles to focus his eyes on the tree leaning over the stream a few feet on the far side. “I guessed,” he murmured. It was barely audible.

Charles turned towards him, chin high. “I should never have said anything. I have distressed you,” he said stiffly. “I beg your pardon. I should keep such thoughts to myself; I know I should. No one should have to hear them; it would obviously be unwelcome. This—” He took a deep breath. “This must be hopelessly embarrassing for you. I do apologize.”

Hawkeye breathed in deeply. For a moment, he seemed about to speak; but then he let his breath out slowly. For several tense moments, he continued to stare at the tree across the stream. The flush on his face deepened. “I’m the one who’s supposed to always have the answer,” he finally said. “But I don’t know what to say.”

“Say nothing, then,” Charles said, as dispassionately as he could manage. “‘_It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them._’”

“Now you’re the one quoting the classics.” Hawkeye cleared his throat, looked directly at Charles, and said more firmly, “I may not be able to be all you want; but I will be eternally grateful to be considered your friend.” He hesitated; then he took a deep breath, steeled himself, and leaned closer.

For a split second, Charles had the impulse to turn his head suddenly so their lips met. But, when it came to his baser instincts, he had from earliest childhood been taught, exhorted, and punished to ensure that he knew the proper way to behave. His training held true: a Winchester _always_ maintains self-control.

For the first and last time, Hawkeye kissed Charles gently on the cheek.

For one moment, Charles remained utterly still. Then he sighed quietly, held out his hand to Pierce, and said, “Help me up then, friend.”


	5. Chapter 5

**1968**

  
On the day that Margaret was due to be discharged, Charles finally broke silence again on the subject of Ben’s father. “Whatever your reasons in the past, doesn’t _this_ change things?” he asked, and gestured toward her bandages.

“Ben did ask me questions a couple of years ago,” Margaret admitted. “But he’s shown no interest in his father since.”

“_Shown_ no interest?” Charles asked pointedly. “Or merely known there’d be no point in asking further?”

Margaret bridled. “I’m sure he’s accepted that he’ll never know who he is,” she said. “We’re happy just the three of us. Besides, suppose Ben decided to try to finding him? How would Hawkeye react? How would he feel if he knew I’d had his child and never told him?”

“He might be pleased,” said Charles, thinking how he might feel if he discovered he had a son, even on the wrong side of the blanket. After the contrivances of Donna’s pregnancies, she’d decided to stop after two. “He’s never married, you know,” Charles added. It was the sort of thing that might have made him wonder … if he hadn't been given his answer years ago.

Margaret looked surprised. “How do _you_ know?” she asked.

“Oh, he’s Chief of Emergency Medicine at Maine Medical Centre,” said Charles blandly. “We meet every so often at medical conferences. In fact, he usually stays with us when he's in town for a symposium.”

“Really?" she said, astonished. “You know Hawkeye? _I’ve_ lost touch with everyone from the old days.” Her eyes dropped. “You can imagine why.”

Charles had no idea what to say to that.

“Not,” she added, “that I’m surprised at his keeping in touch with people. I mean, B.J., Trapper: they were always thick as thieves. But Hawkeye and _you_?” She laughed, a little too loud. “I wouldn't have thought the two of you had anything in common!”

“Oh, mere propinquity,” he drawled. “Hunnicutt is the other side of the country, after all, while I am just a little over a hundred miles south. If they ever get round to actually building the Interstate instead of just talking about it, Pierce could drive here to Boston in a couple of hours.” With a slight smile, he added, “He’s coming next week, in fact.”

Odd, he thought. In a country the size of the United States of America, what were the chances that three ex-M.A.S.H. personnel would all end up in such contiguity. Then again, Boston was full of Irish. He cocked his head and looked at Margaret, still Houlihan after all these years. “You know,” he said pointedly, “that also puts him two hours from _you_.”

“I don’t know….”

“A boy needs a father, Margaret, especially once he reaches his teens and is old enough to appreciate how different his own family is from those of his friends. I’m not saying you have to do it immediately. Clearly, you need to talk it over with your mother—in general terms, even if you haven’t yet told her Ben’s paternity.” And more vigorously, “Yes, indeed! Ask _her_ what she thinks is best for him.” He could see a dawning doubt on her face, and reached into his pocket for his card case. “Here,” he said, taking out his fountain pen. “Let me give you my number. My _home_ number. I have yours from the medical records.”

Clearly feeling things were moving too fast, Margaret stayed silent while he scribbled, and took the proferred card without comment. He capped his pen and put it in his pocket. “If you would like me to arrange a meeting, I would be delighted,” he continued smoothly. “Obviously, Pierce’s trip next week presents an ideal opportunity.”

In sudden alarm, Margaret said, “Promise you won’t go behind my back and tell him!”

At her expression, he reined in his enthusiasm. Reluctantly, compelled by the urgency in her face, he said formally, “No, Margaret, I shan’t. I promise. My word on it.”

“And you won’t say anything to Ben?” she added, looking along the ward. Charles glanced over his shoulder and spotted her family coming through the swing doors, her son outpacing his grandmother and approaching fast with a worried look on his face at the sight of a doctor at his Mom’s bedside.

“No, of course not,” he reassured her, as he rose to his feet. “That has to be up to you.” He turned to nod a greeting to Ben.

“She’s all right, isn’t she?” the boy asked anxiously. “She’s supposed to be going home this afternoon. There haven’t been complications?”

“Not at all. Her wound is healing nicely.” Charles smiled. “I was simply reminiscing with an old colleague from Korea.” He turned back to Margaret to say, “I’m sure my wife would be delighted to invite you all to dinner when you’re feeling better.” Then he walked slowly away, feeling the lad’s eyes boring into his back.

Behind him, he could hear Ben say, with quite some excitement, “You knew him in Korea, Mom? I've never met anyone you knew in Korea!"

Charles kept walking steadily away.

"Did he know my father? You did say my father was a doctor.” And then, “Is _he_ my father?”

Oh, yes. Ben definitely did still have questions.

A week later, and Margaret still hadn’t called. It seemed probable that she did not intend to; and, upon reflection (not unassisted by Donna), Charles realized that a meeting with Pierce would be unreasonably stressful for anyone in the early stages of convalescence from major surgery.

“Tell me when she’s scheduled to start radiation therapy,” his wife said, “and I’ll invite her—and her family too—to dinner the week before. And _not_ with Hawkeye there! Honestly, Charles! Give it time: give _her_ time. And,” she added, “if you have her address, I’ll add her to the Christmas card list.”

The next day, Pierce was late arriving. Dinner was delayed until, finally, Mrs. Armstrong insisted they begin or the roast would be spoiled. In fact, it was not until Charles sat in the study finishing a game of Chinese checkers with his daughters, that he heard the doorbell finally ring and voices in the hall. The girls, however, were intent on their final moves and oblivious to off-scene noises. Only when Pierce was ushered through to the study did they looked round. Immediately, they rushed over to hug him, clamouring for Uncle Hawkeye to come play with them.

Charles managed to catch his eye.

“Yes, yes, in a minute,” Pierce said to the girls. “Am I allowed to breathe?”

“No!” cried Pauline.

Charles allowed himself a smile. “You must be hungry,” he began. “Let me ring—”

Pierce shook his head, “The nurses got me a sandwich at the hospital.”

He didn't seem injured in any way; and Charles decided to let the answer pass—for now—since the girls did not remark on it. Evidently, his face spoke for him, though. With a direct glance at him, Pierce said quietly, “Later.” Then, looking down again at the children, he asked more loudly, “Do you girls _have_ time for another game? I don’t want to get in trouble with your father, you know.” At their eager assent and Charles’s nod, he went on, “Well, in that case … Charlotte, how about you and me against your Dad and Pauline? Just to make it more interesting.” He then helped the children set up the checkers board again; and, with Charlotte perched on the ottoman and Pauline on the chair from the desk, they played first one game and then another, until Donna came in to say that it was time the girls went to bed. Charles suddenly saw the clock and realized that, in fact, it was well past the hour.

He followed the children up to kiss them good-night, leaving Pierce in the study alone. It was fully twenty minutes before he returned. With him he bore a tray loaded with thinly sliced cold roast beef, French baguette with curls of butter, paté and crackers, shrimp vol-au-vents, and crudités and dip. Pierce’s face lit up at the sight.

“I thought it must be a while since that sandwich,” was all Charles said.

He joined his friend in a morsel or two for company, and then watched while Pierce paid hungry attention to his food. Afterwards, he crossed to the credenza and proffered a distinctive triangular bottle.

“Make mine a double, please,” Pierce requested. “I’ve had quite a day.” There was a brief silence as he took a sip from the glass. “Ah, nectar of the gods!” He stretched out on the loveseat, legs hanging over the far arm, and studied the light that glinted amber in the glass of scotch. After a long moment, he took another sip.

“You said ‘hospital’?” Charles poured himself a cognac before claiming his usual chair.

“Yes,” said Pierce. He set the glass down on his side table, swung his legs to the floor, and leaned forward, elbows on knees. “I was a couple of miles out of town still. You can imagine, at that time of day, the traffic was pretty grim. So, of course, one idiot decided to pass when there wasn’t enough space.”

“And there was an accident,” Charles finished. “Yes, and you stopped to help.” (Of course he stopped. Pierce would _always_ be the one who stopped.)

“I was caught there for what felt like hours.” Pierce grimaced. “Multi-car pile-up; I triaged the scene. I had my bag with me, of course. Oh, in comparison to some of the sessions I remember from Korea, I suppose it wasn't too bad. Once I’d done First Aid, most of it could wait to be dealt with properly at the hospital. We’re talking contusions—_lots_ of contusions—and a couple of simple fractures. But there was this one really serious injury. I mean _bad_, Charles. Bad-as-the-stuff-we-saw-in-the-war bad. Plus it took ages to get the poor guy out of his crushed auto.” Pierce bit his lip and shook his head. “I tell you, he needed a hell of a lot more than the skill of any of the ambulance crews—in so far as they could be said to actually _have_ skills, barring the ability to put someone on a stretcher, stick ’em in the back, and drive like the dickens.” He grimaced. “I’m not joking, Charles. I’m really not joking: they should have personnel more along the lines of the medics they had at Battalion Aid."

Charles nodded. It was not the first time he had heard Pierce say this.

“Anyway, I arrived in Boston in the ambulance. Once I’d seen the victim into surgery, I took a taxi here; but it all meant I didn’t arrive quite as early as planned.”

“Well, if nothing else,” proffered Charles, knowing that it meant little, “you’ll have the perfect example for whatever you’re saying at tomorrow’s panel. At least, I assume this is the sort of suggestion you’re planning on making.”

Pierce shrugged. (Which, Charles thought, was fair enough.) “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment, “but tomorrow morning I'll need you to drive me back to where I had to abandon my car.”

“No problem.”

“Given the time the symposium starts, it’ll have to be damned early,” Pierce warned.

“How often did we rise at dawn in Korea?”

“As seldom as possible!” retorted Pierce. With a snort of laughter, he added, “_As_ you know. You trailed into call-over as late as any of us.”

Charles had to smile ruefully. “Well, this is an errand of mercy, after all,” he said. “We need to get your car off the road before they tow it, or you’ll never be able to drive back home. And,” he jested, “that’s unthinkable, my friend! We’d have you as a permanent house guest; and Maine would be down one cracker-jack surgeon. Is that a fair swap?”

But there was no counter-jest. Pierce looked pensively into nowhere.

Charles sipped his brandy slowly. At first, he did not disturb his friend’s reverie. After a few minutes, though, it occurred to him that an E.R. surgeon would almost surely attend different sessions at the symposium; and Pierce would therefore not hear his paper. Nattering about it might prove a distraction from brooding over systemic deficiencies in accident response times. After a while, indeed, this proved true. As Charles dwelled lovingly on the minutiae of new techniques, his friend leaned back. A few minutes later, he put his feet up. The monologue segued imperceptibly into complaints (as one department head to another) about the deplorable financial problems faced by hospitals; and this succeeded in rousing Pierce to add ruthless comments on penny-pinching accountants at Maine Medical Center. From there, the discussion turned to politics, a comfortable and familiar debate that ranged all the way from erudite, well-evidenced points of argument down to rude and witty name-calling.

“At least LBJ is trying to do something for the poor and the sick,” argued Pierce.

“By allowing _hoi polloi_ from across the world to come? How is that going to help us raise the general skill-level of the Great Unwashed here at home?”

Charles distrusted Nixon, loathed Romney, and had no time for the pseudo-liberalism of Rockefeller. He would vote, of course: it was the responsible thing to do. If men of his breeding and education failed to vote, there would be nothing to counterbalance the common and ill-educated who were so easily swayed by demagogues. But he did not like the choices facing him these days. Alas, he had to admit (if only to himself) that there was actually more talent among the opposition candidates. He could not, of course, say so.

“The strength of feeling at that sit-down in L.A. last June,” said Pierce, shaking his head. “If he continues his current policies, Johnson won’t stand a chance at re-election. Though there is always Bobby Kennedy, I suppose.”

It sounded, Charles thought, at though Pierce was finally winding down. For a moment, he did consider keeping him going by throwing in an acerbic comment or two; but they had both said it all before. He glanced at the clock. “I’d offer you another drink, you unrepentant Democrat,” he said. “But, if we don’t both head to bed, we’ll be lucky to make the first papers of the morning session let alone fetch your car for you.”

And so they called it a night.

The next day was hectic. In the morning coffee break, each talked with people who had spoken up in the Q&As they sat with old acquaintances at lunch; and, in the afternoon, caught up on a year’s changes with people who had grown mysteriously greyer. In the post-symposium wind-down, they spotted each other at the bar, drank a single G&T with people whose identity they knew only from their name tags, and then insisted that they had to leave.

“Or my wife will kill me,” said Charles affably. He put his glass on the bar, took Pierce by the elbow, and turned him towards the door. “It’s Mrs. Armstrong’s version of ragout,” he said as they headed towards the main exit, leaning his head close so Pierce could hear—he hoped—over the white noise of conversations all around.

“What?” Pierce said, in a voice that would have been a little too loud, if it weren’t for the din.

“Fancy stew!” Charles called back. “You’ll like it.”

It was late for the children; but, as it was their Uncle Hawkeye visiting (and because he had missed dinner the previous day), they were allowed to eat with the grown-ups despite the hour. It made for a lively family meal.

“Oh, what we wouldn’t have done to get food like this in Korea,” Pierce said as he mopped up the last of the gravy with the end of his roll. “Even on a two-day pass to Seoul we couldn’t get this sort of meal. Only if you managed a week in Tokyo.”

“Tokyo’s in Japan,” Pauline informed him.

“I know,” he said. “But it’s a lot nearer Korea than the good old U. S. of A. They’d never let us have enough time off to come home—”

“Besides the risk of Klinger simply not coming back.” The two men shared a grin.

“—so,” Pierce went on, addressing the child, “if we were allowed a holiday—a fairly good long holiday, that is—they only let us go as far as Japan. Where there was no war, which meant we were able to enjoy ourselves properly. Mind you,” he added, turning to Charles, “those parcels you used to get from home. They were amazing.”

“They saved my sanity,” Charles admitted. “The dreadful muck they served in the mess tent was barely edible at best.”

“At its best it was worst,” Pierce agreed, “but do you remember that time the water delivery was delayed and the food was cooked in canned milk?”

“Cooked in _milk_!” exclaimed Charlotte. She picked up her own glass, half empty. “You mean milk like this?” Her expression betrayed utter disbelief.

“You mean your Daddy hasn’t told you that story?” demanded Pierce.

She shook her head; so did her sister.

“Charles!” said Pierce in an awful tone. “How could you deprive your children of such a tale? If only so they grow up knowing how very fortunate they are to be able to eat food like this—” He reached over, picked up Charlotte’s fork, and held up a piece of green pepper from her plate. “—boiled properly in _water_.” He passed the fork to its rightful owner and added quietly, “Here you are; eat it up; and have the rest of your veggies, too. Then you can have dessert.”

“But if there was no water,” said Pauline in a very practical, sensible tone, “how could you wash your face in the morning.”

“We didn’t,” declared Pierce. At the girls’ shocked faces, he added wickedly, “Nor the rest of us, either. After a few days, we all stank to high heaven.”

Donna bit her lip. “Not at the table, Hawkeye,” she said; but her tone suppressed laughter.

“It has to rank as one of the worst periods of my life,” Charles put in. “Your father does believe in regular baths, girls. A Winchester_ always_ washes. Neck and knees, and behind the ears, too. Though, I admit, I do draw the line at shaving in milk.”

The girls made faces; Donna murmured a comment about asses’ milk being purportedly good for the complexion, and Hawkeye hooted, “As I recall you used that case of Vichy water your family sent you!”

Donna got quietly up and rang the bell. By the time Mrs. Armstrong appeared and she bade her remove the plates, the conversation had turned.

“We’re having lemon meringue pie,” said Pauline importantly. “I helped squash the lemons on the thingie; and we got lots of juice.”

“That sounds delicious,” said Pierce. “You’re going to make some man a great wife when you grow up, being able to cook like that.”

She grinned broadly at the compliment, showing a gap in her teeth. “When I grow up, I’ll marry _you_,” she declared. After a moment, she added, “If you want to, I mean.”

“It’s usually the gentleman who asks the lady,” said Charles in gentle reproof.

“And anyway, I’m not really the marrying kind.”

At that point, Mrs. Armstrong came in carrying the promised pie, drawing the children’s attention; so it was only Charles who caught the brief questioning glance that his wife sent him. He replied with the tiniest frown and shake of his head. As the pie was then set in front of her, she had perforce to thank the housekeeper and pick up the serving knife. The first slice was cut, and laid on a plate. Then, to the children’s visible disappointment, she handed it to their guest, who set it in front of him without picking up his fork, and enlivened the time before they could all dig in by making lip-smacking noises and broadly complimenting the cook—or cooks—in terms designed to make the children giggle.

Would Donna say something later, Charles wondered. It was not the first time that his old friend had—surely innocently and inadvertently (though not inappositely)—used some phrase that, in different company, would be interpreted as code. For such as Donna and himself, it was a matter of safety and solidarity. Just such a cue had caught her ear at the party where they had encountered each other again. She had then slipped a similar phrase into the conversation: he had, of course, picked it up. The result had been an enduring friendship, leading to their _mariage de convenance_. We make a good team, he thought to himself.

As for Pierce, Charles had long since decided that his friend was not so much ignorant of the import of his words as a man so utterly secure in his heterosexuality that he had no fear of being taken wrong.

Immediately after dessert, the children were shooed up to bed. “Can Uncle Hawkeye read us a story?” piped up Charlotte.

“No stories tonight,” said Donna firmly. “It’s very late for little girls.”

“You had stories over dinner,” Charles pointed out. Then he conceded, “I’ll come up and sing you a lullaby.” It would, he thought, be sufficient of the usual bedtime ritual to help them calm down and get to sleep.

In fact, this night they all went upstairs, since the children wanted their Uncle Hawkeye to kiss them good-night. Donna got them into their nighties; Charles supervised the brushing of teeth; and Pierce turned down the blankets, bowed, and ushered them into their beds. Donna laughed, said “I’ll leave you to the rest of it,” and went downstairs.

“Now,” said Charles, sitting at the foot of Charlotte’s bed, “what shall I sing? ‘All Aboard for Blanket Bay’?”

“I’m thirsty,” Pauline tried. “Mom always lets me have a glass of water.”

“Little one,” her father spoke gravely, “if you have not realized by now that your mother and I differ in some key respects, I have grave doubts about your intelligence. If you have a whole glass of water now, you’ll be up in the middle of the night, won’t you?”

The child giggled.

Pierce smiled. “How would it be if I sang you to sleep?” he suggested. “I’m not sure about ‘Blanket Bay’; but I think I can manage ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’. Either of you girls have a toy train?”

“Not a ’nelectic train,” said Charlotte. “But Pauline has a painted one with real wheels that turn; and I get to play with it sometimes.”

“Well, this is about a _real_ train with wheels that turn,” said Hawkeye, in a dead serious voice. “And,” he added, with a thoughtful eye on the girls, “assuming either of you likes food, I should maybe mention that it’s got ham and eggs in it, too.”

“Green ham and eggs?” asked Pauline.

He looked a little startled and cast a helpless glance at Charles, who simply looked down with a smile and left him to it. Pierce was, he thought, never at a loss for an answer. And indeed, he turned back to the girls, saying “No, I think … just the usual colour because … the man in the song likes them better that way.”

“You’re good with children,” Charles said as they went downstairs to his study.

“You think I should’ve made a pediatrician?” Pierce asked. “I get the attraction: after meatball surgery, pretty appealing, actually. But not perhaps the best use of my skills.”

Charles went over to the credenza and offered a choice of drinks.

“I’ll have that Glenfiddich again, if you don’t mind,” Pierce said. As it was being poured, he went on, “Or was that a match-making gleam? Donna been at you? I know how women are.” He caught Charles’s eye. “I had my chances, you know. I just never took them. When I say I’m not the marrying kind, I have that on the very best authority. I’ve mentioned Carlye, haven’t I?”

Charles frowned, then finished pouring.

“I’m sure I have … though, now that I think about it, she came as a nurse to the 4077th before you arrived. It was Beej who met her, not you.” He took the glass from Charles, but simply sat down on the loveseat, holding it with a thoughtful look on his face.

Charles retreated to the armchair with his own glass.

“Carlye Breslin,” said Pierce in a soft, reminiscent voice, and sighed heavily. “Oh, Carlye.” He looked down at the glass in his hand, sipped it, and then set it aside. “Well, she’s not Carlye _Breslin_ any more. She’s … what the hell was his name, again? Doug … Walman? Warton?” He shook his head. “Well, whatever her married name is. Assuming they’re still together, of course. She broke up with _me_, after all.” He sighed again.

Charles sipped his own drink.

“We met at when I was doing my surgical residency.”

“Before Korea, you mean?”

Pierce nodded. “Yeah, I guess she decided to do her patriotic duty, or something. Also her husband was … in the Navy, if I recall. Called up. I dare say they were thinking they could get together on leave if she joined as a nurse. Anyway, she got assigned to the 4077th—she was a good nurse; it’s how we first met, of course.” He paused. “We were pretty serious. Lived together for a year … year and a half.”

“Lived together?” said Charles, a little puzzled. “You did your residency here in Boston, didn’t you? I don’t recall our having a co-ed dormitory back then. Or were you in lodgings?” When this elicited a headshake, he exclaimed, “You mean you _cohabited_?”

“We rented a small place together. Painted it; scrounged secondhand furniture. Fixed it up.” Pierce smiled reminiscently. “Our own little Garden of Eden.”

“How very … Bohemian of you.” He shouldn’t be so astonished, Charles thought, and chided himself for straitness of mind. It might be unconventional (to put it mildly); but then Pierce had always been unconventional in so many _other_ ways: why not this?

“It wasn’t casual.” Pierce leaned forward, looking at him earnestly. “Please don’t think I took Carlye lightly. I think maybe she was the love of my life.” He looked embarrassed. “If that isn’t a ridiculous thing to say. I mean, she broke up with me because she said I thought more of medicine than I did her; and, when she turned up again at the 4077th, we got together even though she was married—and I said we should try again; but she put in for a transfer.” At Charles’s quizzical look, he added, “She said I hadn’t changed.”

Not knowing what to say, Charles merely nodded. And took another sip.

“Pretty sad, isn’t it?” said Pierce, essaying a smile. “Here I am talking about a woman you never met, and it was all years ago, anyway. I knew her once upon a time, Charles: that’s the short of it.” He shrugged, tossed off his glass with one deep swallow and held it out in mute request. Charles hesitated; but then he rose, fetched the Glenfiddich, and freshened the drink.

“Well, her memory has stuck with you,” said Charles judiciously as he put the bottle back. “And a year’s a good bit longer than Major Houlihan’s marriage to that Donald of hers.” He sat back down, and saw his friend start to sip at his whisky. After a moment’s thought, he continued, “Pierce, in Korea I saw you court—no, better say _flirt_ with quite a sequence of nurses. In fact, pretty well anything female that would look at you. I won’t say ‘anything in a dress’, since we all remember Klinger’s taste in frocks.” He waited for a smile that didn’t come. “In my opinion,” he concluded, “however ardent you may have been for a while (and I know you were about a few of them), you weren’t really _serious_ about any of them, not even when you thought you were.”

Pierce continued to sip his Scotch. Trying again for humour, Charles added, “I bet you don’t remember any of their names.”

“I remember Margaret Houlihan. An amazing woman. We were on opposite sides in almost everything; but you could count on her absolutely in a crisis.” Pierce looked down at the glass. “Sometimes I wonder what happened to her. I get letters and cards from a lot of the others, and visited Beej and Trap a few times; but she’s one person that everyone seems to have lost touch with.” He finished his drink, crossed to the credenza, and replenished his glass himself.

For a moment, Charles considered offering some trite obfuscatory suggestion about the likelihood that Margaret had married and had a family: a different surname and a busy life could account for much. But he could not bring himself to do it. It would not be an outright lie; but, if his friend ever discovered the truth, he would undoubtedly take it that way.

Pierce recapped the bottle and turned, glass in hand. “It’s times like these I envy you, Charles,” he said. “Not this bloody mansion—” He gestured round the room. “—with the panelled walls and bow windows. Not the … the fine dining, and the crystal and silver, and—” He raised the glass as if in toast. “—the great Scotch. For which I thank you. Because, don’t get me wrong, all of those things are nice to have.” He crossed to the bow window, pulled the heavy velvet drapes half-open and stood, his back to his friend, staring out at the tall spire of the Church of the Covenant that he could see in the distance.

Charles looked at him, perplexed what to say. Clearly something had got into Pierce; but he had no idea what or why. Finally, the other man turned, sipped his drink, and said in a falsely cheerful tone, “Let’s have some music.”

Charles got up and turned on the radio, permanently tuned to WCRB. The strains of Mozart filled the room, and he turned down the volume. If Pierce wanted to talk, he wanted to hear.

“I might have known it’d be something highbrow.”

“You want a different station?”

“No, no. That’s all right.” Pierce sat back down. Before joining him, Charles pulled the curtains to.

“The truth of it is, when I was in Korea, I yearned for Crabapple Cove every second I was there; but, when I did return home, I was bored silly half the time.” He shook his head with a faint frown, and sighed. “My father was born to be a country GP. He knew every patient he ever had, cradle to grave. _I_ was the one who left home. _I_ went into surgery. That was my decision, no one else’s. Carlye was right, you know. I’ve turned away from marriage and family and the quiet life, with the country practice and nice close circle of friends—hearth and home and white picket fence, the whole shebang. I made that choice before I went to Korea; I did it again after.” Once again, he tossed back his drink; once again, he went to the credenza.

“You are a brilliant trauma surgeon, Pierce.” Charles sat comfortably back, and put his own glass—now empty—on the side table. “A lot of people owe their lives to the choices you made.”

Pierce bit his lip. He picked up the bottle again, and added another tot. “I don’t have regrets. Not really. I know my skills. I’d be wasted in a country practice.”

Charles twisted round to stare at him. “Then what the hell’s got into you?”

“You have two adorable daughters, and I envy you.”

Clearly Pierce had no idea about Ben. Charles felt the weight of knowledge—but Margaret had his solemn word; and a Winchester’s word is always his bond. The lad could not be so much as mentioned, nor the fact that Margaret had recently been his patient.

Pierce turned, glass in hand, and toasted Charles yet again. “And your wife! Who’d have imagined between the two of us you’d have been the one to marry and I’d still be in bachelor quarters?”

“A Winchester always marries,” Charles said gravely, glad of the change of subject. “I had to carry on the family name, you know.” (Not that he had achieved _that_, of course, though he remembered only joy at the birth of both his daughters. Still, there was a reason he’d wanted his second and last child to be a ‘Charlotte’.) Against his better judgment, he added, “We both wanted a family. I love Donna; but it would be wrong to say that either of us is _in_ love with the other.”

“Joanna?” said Pierce, with a sharp glance. “I’m not a fool, Charles. And I’m not going to ask if _you_ have someone.”

After a moment, Charles said quietly, “No, there’s no one.” The words seemed fraught with meaning. He stared into Hawkeye’s eyes for a moment, then dropped his own lest they betray him. Not that either of them had ever mentioned again that drunken, embarrassing admission of love he had made by the damaged jeep. But he doubted Hawkeye—Pierce—suffered a convenient amnesia. Rather, Charles had always accepted that, for their friendship to flourish, he had to keep silent about his feelings, however hard that might occasionally be. He did not, therefore, expound on the virtues of large houses, spare bedrooms, the chaperoning effect of two small children and a housekeeper, and a remarkable level of tact on both sides. Instead, he said only, “I was extremely fortunate to meet and marry Donna.”

Pierce once again tossed off the contents of his glass. Once again, he replenished it. For a moment, Charles almost protested. They would both need to be up early the next day—he for work, and Pierce for the drive back to Portland. (If only the Interstate were built!) But their conversation was beginning to terrify him; and it was easier to keep silent. Once again, Pierce crossed to the window, twitched the curtain aside, and looked out. Probably, Charles thought, he saw nothing beyond the glass, instead locked in the darkness of his own thoughts. Certainly, he didn't say anything.

WCRB played on, unremarked.

“It’s getting late,” Charles finally ventured. Usually, he hated to draw the evening to a close. Pierce’s visits were too infrequent. He resented losing in mere sleep the time he could have spent with his friend. Instead, it would be the other man who would mention the time and point out his lengthy drive to Maine. Tonight, though, Charles yearned for his solitary bed, with Pierce safely down the hall: out of sight, if not out of mind. 

Charles would try—in common decency—to _keep_ Hawkeye out of mind. Imagination did often run pleasurably riot despite his intentions.

He got up and crossed to the window, took the edge of the curtain from Pierce’s hand, and firmly put it back in place. “Come on,” he said. “Bed.” He took his friend’s arm to aim him towards the door.

Turning further in the grasp of Charles’s hand, Hawkeye leaned in and kissed him.

For a long sweet astonished moment, Charles accepted it. Returned it. Put a hand up, behind Hawkeye’s head and pulled him close. Felt his arms close around him, hold him, squeeze him tight.

Then Hawkeye pulled back enough to whisper, “I think I’m too drunk to do anything, you understand; but, what the hell? Bed. Yes. Why not?”

Why not, indeed? Charles pulled back reluctantly, extricated himself from Hawkeye’s arms, and—badly shaken—walked back to his chair, where he picked up his glass. A minute of reflection could be bought at the credenza with a nip of cognac. “It sounds delightful,” he said, putting the glass down, “and enormously flattering; but I think I should decline. I don’t want to,” he added, turning towards Hawkeye. “I assure you, I don’t in the least _want_ to say no. But—” and he forced a smile “—if I did take advantage of your offer, then what would you think of me in the morning?”

Hawkeye's face lit up with a broad grin. “Isn’t that supposed to be _my_ line?” he asked. Leaving the window, he flopped again onto the loveseat and leaned back. “Oh, come on, Charles. Think of the Summer of Love…!”

“That was last year,” said Charles dryly.

He picked up his glass, crossed to collect the other, and then—holding the pair of them in his left hand—held out his right hand to Pierce. After a moment, the other man took it and was hauled to his feet. “I’m going to drop these off in the kitchen … save Mrs. Armstrong a trip,” Charles said, and propelled Pierce towards the door. He saw him safely on the way up the stairs, put the glasses on the kitchen counter, and popped into the parlour to see if Donna might still be up.

“Off to bed?” she asked, putting aside her book as he put his head round the door.

“Pierce is, yes. Drunk as a skunk, and in a bit of a melancholy mood. He’ll want a gallon of coffee in the morning.”

“Ah well,” said Donna. “Talking over old times, were you?”

“Something like that.” He hesitated, then turned to make sure that Pierce had not, in drunken _amour_, come back downstairs to find him. “Look, Donna,” he said quietly, coming in and shutting the door, “I’ve been thinking.” He paused to check that he had her attention. “You were going to ask Margaret and her family over for dinner….”

“You must tell me if there are things she won’t eat,” she put in.

“Actually, I was thinking … it might be better if we took them _out_ instead. At least until such a time (if there is a time) when she’s ready to come clean about her—” He lowered his voice even further. “—her son. _Their_ son. Because Pierce is bound to come again for a visit, you know, later if not sooner. And children do talk. I don’t think it’s the best way for it all to come out, do you? Charlotte or Pauline saying, ‘Oh, we met Auntie Margaret last week’? Even more if they add, ‘and her son Ben.’ But if you—”

“Say no more,” Donna assured him. “You’re absolutely right. Why don’t we take her to the Union Oyster House, then?”

And they left it there.

The next morning, Pierce nibbled at scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, had two glasses of orange juice and a cup of hot sugared tea, and filled a thermos with black coffee for the trip. He mentioned the previous evening not at all, except to compliment Donna again on dinner and express his gratitude for hospitality. When Pauline asked when they’d see him again, he said he wasn’t sure. And when Charlotte pouted, he patted her shoulder and said something about maybe coming to see the Boston Marathon. As he toted his overnight bag out the door, he gave Donna a peck on the cheek. Charles’s hand he shook, briefly; but he didn’t meet his eyes.

Charles said nothing, then or ever. A Winchester always knows when it’s best to shut up.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Carlye Breslin appeared in the Season 4 episode, “The More I See You”. The name of her husband is actually Doug Walton.
> 
> 2\. Although early episodes mention that Margaret’s father is dead, “Howitzer Al” Houlihan visits M.A.S.H. 4077 in the Season 9 episode “Father’s Day”, in which we are also told that he and her mother are divorced.
> 
> 3\. In the series finale, “Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen”, Charles goes home to a senior position at Boston Mercy Hospital. The short-lived sequel series, _AfterMASH_, mentions that he marries his high school sweetheart and becomes chief surgeon at Boston General Hospital. “Secrets and Lies” (the story remixed here) gives him a somewhat different future.
> 
> 4\. In the series finale, Hawkeye says that he's going home to Maine, where he can get to know his patients; _AfterMASH_ mentions that he thought of quitting medicine but decided to go into pediatrics. As an immediate reaction to war, this makes sense. It's another matter whether such a brilliant surgeon would find the change of specialty satisfying in the long run.
> 
> 5\. In “Secrets and Lies”, references to Donna and Charles’s first meeting in the war indicate that she is the nurse, [Donna Marie Parker](https://mash.fandom.com/wiki/Donna_Marie_Parker), from the episode “Mr and Mrs Who?”. She is not, however, explicitly identified in the character list; and I've therefore dropped that backstory (though keeping her first name).


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